Fall of Duchess
by PurpleHairedGenius
Summary: Sequel to Solace of Gemini. The Archer twins, Leon and Lewis, have been kidnapped by their stepfather, Orin Steel, and only Lana and Archer can save them! Re-rated to T to get more views. Shitloads of language and violence! You've been warned.
1. London Emergency Calling

Note: This is the sequel to my story, _Solace of Gemini_, so if you haven't read the shiny, brand-new and improved ending to the epilogue of _that_ story, please go read that before starting up on _this_ story, or else this won't make any sense. For the rest of you, read on, enjoy, and review!

* * *

Chapter One: London Emergency Calling

Leon sighed in boredom as he looked out of the window of the private jet that his stepfather, Orin Steel, was piloting over the Atlantic Ocean.

Lewis, happy to be going to London, hummed to himself as he drew in his sketchbook. Leon rolled his eyes at his twin, walked over to the liquor cabinet, and tried pulling open the locked door to no avail.

"Shit...hey Lewis, didja bring the lockpicks?"

Lewis, still humming and drawing, reached in his messenger bag next to him, fished out the leather roll of lockpicks, and tossed them towards his brother without lifting his head up from his sketchbook.

"Thanks. It's weird that Orin locks up his booze like this...it's like he doesn't trust us or something..." Leon said as he successfully picked open the lock on the cabinet. Eyeing the selection available inside, he decided to grab the half-full bottle of Dr. McRuddyduddy's cherry schnapps. Leon poured it's contents into two tumblers with ice, and tossed the empty bottle into the back of the cabinet.

Leon took a grateful drink of the deceptively sweet, bright red liquor, and handed the other glass to Lewis.

The Archer twins had only recently been introduced to alcohol (Archer had taken them to Paris a few months ago where all three of them got completely shit-faced on wine), but they had been casual drinkers ever since then. There was absolutely no doubt that the Archer blood ran in their veins.

Lewis took a large sip of his schnapps, and looked up to his brother sitting across from him at the small table.

"I wonder why Mom decided to take off for London without us last night...", Leon questioned out loud as he took a sip from his tumbler, looking out the window at the clouds racing by below. As he drank, a realization started to form in his young mind as his brother continued drawing.

Lewis shrugged, "Maybe she wanted to...I dunno, surprise him with something. It's Orin's birthday on Sunday..."

Leon clenched his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed with his brother's affection for their stepfather.

He loosened his navy blue necktie, ran a hand through his inky black hair, and drank most of the schnapps left in his tumbler, trying his best to calm himself down as to not lash out at his brother.

"Lewis, don't you think it's at least a _teensy_ bit weird that Mom would take off to England right after Orin fucked up his nose by 'gettin a tad wobbly on 'is pegs' and fell, even though we didn't hear anything except for him and Mom yelling last night?" Leon made air quotes and impersonated Orin's accent.

Lewis, who was much more trusting than his twin, took a contemplative sip from his drink and tapped his pencil on his chin, mulling over the question.

"N-nnnnnnnoo?"

Leon scowled at Lewis, grabbed Lewis's schnapps and downed the remainder of it himself, and, after shoving both empty glasses to the floor, he slid across the small table and grabbed Lewis by his dark green necktie, staring his twin down in his identical blue-green eyes.

"Lewis, dude, WE'VE BEEN FUCKING KIDNAPPED. How obvious does it need to be?!"

Lewis raised an eyebrow at his brother, and was silent a moment.

"No."

Leon's grip on the tie loosened in disbelief of his brother's ignorance, his mouth agape.

"Yes, Lewis, we ha-"

Lewis turned his head away.

"No."

"YES, LEW-"

"NOOOOPE."

Finally, Leon hopped up on the table and shook Lewis roughly by his shoulders.

"YOU FUCKING MORON! ORIN HAS KIDNAPPED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF US!"

Lewis smacked Leon upside his head, and the identical boys fell to the floor, wailing on each other. As they fought, neither of the boys noticed that Orin was standing near the door of the cockpit, watching them.

Eventually, Orin kneeled down and picked up both boys by the backs of their short-sleeved white dress shirts, separating them from each others punches. He stared both boys in their faces.

"All right, you little bastards, listen up, and listen _good_. From the wee camera in her wedding ring, I saw that that whore mother of yours slept with your asshole father last night, after breaking me fuckin' nose! So to be clear, this is _not_ a bloody kidnapping, it is an _escape_ from the contagious, wretched promiscuity and utter debauchery of your vile excuse of a father!"

Orin, his face red from yelling, narrowed his hazel eyes at the twins, challenging either of them to say something.

Finally, Leon smirked and spat directly into Orin's eye, causing him to drop Leon and Lewis.

"OW, WHAT THE BLEEDING HELL WAS THAT?!" Orin shouted as he writhed blindly on the floor, groaning in pain.

Leon grinned, kicked Orin swiftly in the ribs, and belched loudly. "Ethyl alcohol, you dipshit! I am fucking _wasted_! Woo!"

Lewis grabbed his drunken brother's arm and pulled him away from Orin. He leaned down next to his stepfather, and reached inside of his messenger bag.

"Orin, are you all right?", Lewis asked as he searched through his bag.

"No, son, I think...I think I may be blind!"

"Good, then you won't see me do this."

Lewis produced a small gun from his bag, stood, and aimed it at Orin's chest. Leon's eyes widened in shock, and dove towards his brother to stop him, but it was too late.

Lewis fired a shot directly into Orin's chest, leaving a brightly-colored dart protruding through their now-unconscious kidnapper's torso.

Leon smacked his forehead in frustration.

"Way to go, Colin Murdoch! You tranked the only guy here that knows how to fly this fruity-ass plane! How the hell are we supposed to...to not crash?!"

Lewis stared blankly into space, just then realizing his mistake. Suddenly, an idea sprang to mind.

"Hmm, maybe we can land this thing ourselves! Go look around for an instruction manual, or at least an emergency radio! I'll go see if I can figure out the controls, because goddamn, man, you are totally shit-faced, you really shouldn't drive anything right now!"

Leon laughed, burped, and started searching the plane as Lewis grabbed his leather messenger bag and ran to the cockpit.

The controls said that it was set on autopilot, and that they had only a quarter tank of fuel left. Lewis looked up, and saw that the GPS screen read that they were well over 1000 miles from Heathrow Airport.

After analyzing the numbers, Lewis realized that they wouldn't have nearly enough gas to make it to London, and he had no idea where the airstrip Orin planned on landing to refuel was.

Panicking, Lewis searched through his messenger bag, trying desperately to find the-

* * *

Meanwhile, in NYC

* * *

"...ISIS SAT BEACON, DUMBASS! Where is it?!"

Archer yelled at Pam, who was frantically typing away at the keyboard of her computer at her desk, searching the ISIS inventory for the missing satellite beacon.

Archer and Lana had an ISIS helicopter waiting for them at the airport, and the beacon was the final thing they needed before they left to find their kidnapped sons.

"Geez, gimme a minute, ya nutsack! There's like a jillion freakin' things on the inventory list, and whatever genius designed this software didn't think it'd be useful to add a goddamned 'search' option!"

Lana ran into Pam's office carrying two large duffle bags packed with supplies, ammo, and enough grenades to make a pyromaniac blush.

"Archer, c'mon, what's the holdup? The helicopter won't stay grounded forever!"

Archer held up a finger towards Lana, and leaned down to face Pam at eye level.

"FIND THE STUPID BEACON BEFORE I BLEED YOU DRY LIKE ONE OF YOUR GODDAMNED IDIOT FARM ANIMALS!"

Without flinching, Pam narrowed her eyes, pressed a button on her computer, and a sheet of paper rolled out of the printer next to the office door.

Lana grabbed the sheet, and saw a grainy surveillance image of Leon and Lewis stealing the beacon out of her duffle bag before she left on her last mission.

Archer went over to Lana, and sighed in relief.

"Whew, good, that means they have it, so worst case, if they're in any real danger, they can-"

The screen behind Pam's desk rolled up and revealed the beacon's signal was already activated somewhere near the west coast of the UK.

"...point out how inept our security is. Holy shit, Lana, they're in trouble! Let's go!"

Archer dragged Lana out of Pam's office, rushing to get to the airport as quickly as possible.

Pam closed the door to her office from a button on her desk, groaned softly, and rolled her chair back.

Krieger popped his head out from under the desk, gasping for air.

"Was...was THAT _any_ better than last time?"

Pam smirked down at the sweaty scientist, and shoved his head back under her desk.

"Meh, there's room for improvement. Speaking of improvement, no search option? Really? Fix that shit soon. Now, try again, Clone Boy!"

Krieger uttered a nearly inaudible "d'aww" before returning to his...assignment, as Pam smiled and shut her eyes.

It was good to be the boss.

* * *

Lewis looked over his right shoulder from the pilot's seat at Leon, who had found instructions on how to land a plane online in an emergency situation on his internet watch. He also found the inflatable safety raft and a few more bottles of liquor, and carried both in his own messenger bag under his arm. The ISIS beacon blinked red next to Lewis.

Leon put the bag and the raft under the passenger seat, and strapped himself into the 5-point harness.

Lewis followed suit with his own harness, and reached up to flip the switch to disengage the autopilot.

The dials on the dashboard spun wildly as the small jet began rattling violently from turbulence as Lewis took over the controls with his small, shaky hands, trying his best to keep the aircraft steady.

"Sh-sh-shhhhit! Okay, Leon, r-read those instructions out t-to me!"

Leon looked at the small screen on his wrist, and struggled to make out the instructions but the plane was shaking too much to read it.

"Umm, y-y-yeah, sorry, but that's n-n-not happening, buddy! Sh-should've thought th-this through..."

"SHIT."

Lewis's grip on the controls tightened as he pulled back on the handles as hard as he could, bracing for impact with the grey ocean coming towards them rapidly.

The boys yelled in unison as the plane crashed into the briny water of the Atlantic before the small jet sank underwater.

The beacon flashed red as it floated on the water above the steaming wreckage.


	2. Two If By Sea

Chapter Two: Two If By Sea

Lewis slowly opened his eyes as the bright sun above him washed out his field of vision.

Lewis groaned in pain as he sat up and held his head, feeling the familiar stickiness of blood on his bandaged temple.

"Ow...wha...what the hell happened?"

Leon sat on the bobbing floor of the bright orange raft across from his brother, and took a pull off the bottle of triple sec he held in his hand. He had wrapped his tattered dark blue necktie around a cut on his left arm. A first aid kit, both of their messenger bags, and the flashing ISIS emergency beacon sat bedside him.

"We crashed, dude. I rescued your ass after you wanged your head on the windshield when we hit the water a couple hours ago...here, take a drink, it'll make you feel better."

Lewis reached over, grabbed the bottle from his brother, and took a long, greedy sip. He noticed that he was leaning against something too firm and angular to be part of the raft, and jumped up in surprise when he saw-

"ORIN! Holy crap, is he _dead_?!"

Leon laughed at his startled twin, and shook his head.

"Nah, just passed out from that tranquilizer dart. I strapped that life vest on him when I was searching around in the plane earlier before we crashed, I figured Mom and Dad would want to kick his ass whenever they come rescue us."

Lewis sighed in relief, and sat back down next to Leon, staring at the bright orange life vest on Orin's back. He took another swig off the bottle, and handed it back to his brother.

"I can't believe Orin did this to us..."

Leon snorted through his nose as he swirled the clear, orange-flavored liquor around in it's small brown bottle.

"Pfft, _I_ can. I didn't like this douchebag since the day Mom introduced him to us. Always figured he'd pull some weird shit like this", he scowled at Orin's stirring body as he took another pull off the bottle before handing it back to Lewis.

"I wonder when he'll wake up?"

Leon pulled out the tranquilizer gun from Lewis's bag next to him, and shot Orin directly in the ass with a laugh. Orin stopped moving around seconds later and laid still once more.

"Oh, probably some time after, oh, I dunno, let's say, whenever I run out of darts."

Lewis shook his head disapprovingly, and finished off the rest of the bottle.

He looked down at the beacon, and hoped that their parents would be there soon.

* * *

"Oh god, Archer, the signal from the boys' beacon isn't moving anymore. It hasn't moved in at least an hour, and we're still two hours away from them!"

Lana's heart raced with the thought of their sons being in a plane crash, or even worse, dead. She set the small GPS screen down in her lap in the ISIS helicopter and buried her face in her hands and sobbed, worried senseless about Leon and Lewis.

Archer looked up from his wallet filled with pictures of him and the twins, and leaned over to Lana and hugged her close; he was just as distraught over the thought of their kids being hurt or dead, but he had to stay calm and strong for Lana.

"Shh, shh, c'mon Lana, I'm sure they're fine. You keep forgetting, Leon and Lewis are _our_ kids. They've been learning how to be badasses since before they were born! Between the survival camp, time at the shooting range, the krav maga classes and those swimming lessons, well...th-they'll be ok, Lana, y-you'll see...", he said as his voice cracked a little over the noise-canceling headset, choking back his own worried sobs. He flipped the microphone off so Lana wouldn't hear him sobbing as he rested his chin on her shoulder.

Lana nodded her head, and pulled back and smiled weakly at Archer, grateful for the comfort. She sniffed, and stole a quick kiss from him. She looked back at the GPS screen once again, staring at the blinking red dot that indicated the boys' location.

Archer, his lip quivering, looked at the picture he held in his hand of him, Leon, and Lewis getting arrested for public intoxication in front of the Eiffel Tower. He wiped away a few stray tears, tucked his wallet full of pictures back into the inside pocket of his black wool deck jacket, and stared at his boots, genuinely scared for his sons' lives.

* * *

Leon sprang up from his alcohol-assisted slumber with a start when he felt himself moving along the ground.

Orin, who had woken up from his tranquilizer fog soon after the boys fell asleep an hour before, had landed the small raft on the coastline, and was dragging the unconscious Archer brothers in the deflated raft across the dark beach.

"Where the hell are we?" Leon asked out loud to the moonlit sand dragging by in front of him.

Orin, pulling the raft behind him over his shoulder, grumbled.

"Dingle, Ireland."

Leon giggled loudly at the name of the town.

"Pfft, really? Wow, they had to have been wasted when they came up with that name...speaking of which..."

Leon felt around the raft for his small stash of booze, but unfortunately couldn't find a single bottle. Fortunately,he saw the satellite beacon flashing steadily in the bottom of the messenger bag beside his still-sleeping brother.

Orin heard Leon patting around the dark, and sighed in annoyance.

"If you're looking for the liquor you stole from me plane, you little bastard, I left it back on the beach when we landed. Gordon Bennett, this is exactly why I took you two away from your booze-hound of a father; boys your age shouldn't be getting completely off your tits like that..."

Leon rolled his eyes at Orin's preachy whining, and sat cross-legged, gazing up at the night sky as their stepfather dragged them towards town. He didn't notice that the pulsating red light of the beacon had stopped due to the batteries dying moments ago. It tumbled out of the bag onto the beach as they bounced roughly over a rock.

"Ever hear of the term 'smooth sailing', you prick?"

"PISS OFF, smart arse!"

* * *

An hour later, Archer and Lana rappelled down to the coastline near Dingle from the helicopter, and looked around the beach for any sign of their sons. The last time the beacon had sent a signal, it was near where they were.

"Shit, Archer, I found it...the battery's dead", she said as she shone her flashlight on the discarded beacon in her hand.

Archer readjusted the contrast on his night-vision goggles, and spotted something else interesting poking out of the sand beside his feet.

"That's good. At least we know that they were definitely here recently and they're both all right, or, at the very least, buzzed enough to not give a shit...", Archer said as he pulled the empty brown bottle of triple sec out of the sand with a sigh of relief.

Lana turned her flashlight towards Archer to look at what he found, accidentally blinding him.

"**OW! GOOD LORD, LANA, THE GOGGLES**!"

Archer dropped the bottle, tore off the goggles and threw them down. He rubbed his eyes, trying to regain his eyesight as quickly as possible. Lana cringed and muttered "sorry", as she pointed the flashlight back on the beach and saw another clue.

"Goddammit, every _fucking_ time...ouch...", Archer said as he blinked and refocused his eyes back on Lana.

"Archer, look, it looks like something heavy was being dragged, maybe it was them!"

They followed the trail up the sandy beach, into the small town of-

"HA! _Dingle_! Man, and people say _I_ drink too much...friggin' Irish, man...", Archer laughed loudly at the wooden sign with the name of the town carved into it.

Lana shook her head at Archer's immature humor as they headed towards the village.


	3. Whiskey Tango

Chapter Three: Whiskey Tango

Orin Steel hung up a sign he made on the outside of the bathroom door that read "Out of Order", and locked the deadbolt inside. He turned around, and frowned at his reflection in the pub bathroom mirror as his stepsons, Leon and Lewis Archer, sat bound and gagged by duct tape near his feet. The rope from the discarded deflated raft was tied under and around their arms with the long end dangling out the large window above them.

Orin tried in vain to improve his ragged appearance by removing the filthy bandage over the bridge of his broken nose and smoothing down his sweaty, dishwater blonde hair. Unfortunately, his tailored linen suit was soaked and muddy, and his shoes were ruined by the ocean to the point he had to ditch them in a garbage bin.

He sighed, shrugged, and turned away from the mirror and crawled up on the window sill, facing the alleyway outside.

"Well, guess this mug'll have to do for now, eh lads?"

Orin chuckled at the boys' silence as they scowled up at him; he slipped out of the window, making sure the rope fell out with him as he made contact with the cobblestone of the alleyway. He secured the loose rope onto a sturdy pipe running down the side of the building, anchoring the twins inside, and walked out into the night.

Orin looked around the nearly-deserted streets of the small port town of Dingle, looking for a car that was easy to steal to keep moving towards London. Orin fully planned on taking the boys back with him to London, and put them up for adoption. He felt it was his duty as a kind and noble Englishman as well as a man of law and order to assure his stepsons were placed in a proper home by any means necessary. He felt they needed a normal life away from espionage, with a calm family with a modest, monogamous mother who stayed at home, and a normal father with a desk job who didn't drink gallons of booze, have sex with every woman he sees, and gets his way every time due to his incredible, near-supernatural-

* * *

"LUCK! That was just pure, uncut luck, O'Hannity! You're completely fluthered, no boyo coulda made that shot!"

Fanegean, a red-faced, large Irishman, downed his whiskey with a loud "gulp", and wobbled as he tried to stand up to take his turn at the dartboard in back of the local pub, O'Malley's Junction. No one noticed the "out of order" sign that suddenly appeared on the bathroom door behind them, too distracted by the cheap strong liquor and the game of darts to notice much of anything. The other three men Fanegean was playing darts with looked at each other and back to his unsteady, lumbering form, ready to fight the obnoxious drunk who was stumbling towards them with his fists up.

The traditional Irish band near the front of the bar played jovial music, cutting sharp through the thick hazy air of the crowded pub, providing a fitting backdrop for the four men now circling around each other near the back of the small room.

The front door of the pub swung open, bringing in a wave of crisp salty air into the stuffy atmosphere of O'Malley's, as Archer and Lana entered.

"Archer, why the hell are we here? We don't have time for a drink, we need to-oh, gotcha."

Archer pointed to the chalkboard sign that read "Two for One Saturday, All Alcopops Half Off". He knew Leon and Lewis would not have turned down an opportunity for strong, sweet liquor at a discount in a seedy establishment such as O'Malley's, where they were least likely to be checked for an ID . He motioned to Lana to follow him through the sea of drunken people, keeping an eye out for their-

"BOYS! C'mon, lads, stop this now, no need to come to blows, aye? Jesus, isn't this is a holy show!"

A tall, thin waitress pleaded with the four men in front of the dartboard to stop beating each other, but her shouts went completely ignored as a small crowd formed a circle around the now-very-bloodied quartet, cheering and watching the spectacle.

Archer shoved his shoulder between two tall, fat, sweaty backs, grimacing as he felt the clammy moisture from the fabric of their shirts against his face as he squeezed between them. Lana smirked at Archer's disgusted look as she found a small, sweat-free gap in the crowd, and moved forward unhindered.

Finally, they broke through and suddenly found themselves in the middle of the circle of people watching the fight; O'Hannity landed a punch directly on Fanegean's eye, causing him to fall backwards, crashing into Archer's turned back. A black knit ski mask Archer had been keeping in his back pocket fell out onto the floor as he pushed himself back up. Lana reached down to pick up the mask, but one of the grenades she had clipped onto her bulletproof vest under her black leather coat fell out next to it with an audible "clunk".

The cheering crowd suddenly silenced, their eyes locked on Archer and Lana on the floor as they reached for the ski mask and grenade. The couple stared up at the aghast faces surrounding them, realizing the problem.

"Oh, shit."

The tall waitress screamed in horror.

"IT'S AN IRA ATTACK! SWEET LORD, EVERYONE OUT!"

Archer got up quickly, intending to explain that they weren't IRA soldiers and they were only looking for their kids, but he was quickly trampled by Fanegean as he ran away with the rest of the bar patrons.

The crowd of people panicked and stampeded towards the exit, leaving Archer and Lana flabbergasted and alone in the back of the now-empty pub.

Archer stood up slowly, holding his bruised back gingerly.

"Oof...that...that wasn't exactly what I expected to happen. Ow..."

Lana, unscathed but angry, went to Archer and handed him his ski mask roughly.

"Why the hell do you have a friggin' ski mask? It's the middle of _October_!"

Archer rolled his eyes and tucked the ski mask into the back pocket of his pants.

"Duh, Lana, it's to prevent my face getting windburned from Western Europe's notorious freezing winds and the drying effects of briny sea air. That's a lot of stress on your skin, and we're not getting any younger...", he explained as he crouched down, picked up the grenade, and handed it to Lana.

Shaking her head at Archer's vanity, she clipped the grenade back onto her vest without a word, and searched around the empty room for signs of Leon and Lewis.

"Oh what, so you're just gonna pout? Man, Lana, I know we're technically a couple again as of yesterday, but seriously, you gotta work on those communication skills if you expect us to make this work long term."

Lana, still silent, flipped off the back of Archer's head from across the room in annoyance, and kept searching.

Archer went to the bathroom door, and noticed the handwriting on the "out of order" sign hastily stuck on with a wad of gum looked familiar. He pulled out the letter that Orin had left in Lana's apartment from his coat pocket, and realized the handwriting on the sign was identical to Orin's.

"Lana! Over here, I think the boys are in this bathroom!"

He kicked down the locked bathroom door, and saw-

"What was that, Archer?"

He scanned the small, empty bathroom and only saw a window left ajar.

"Nothing. Nevermind...", he said as he looked around the bathroom once more, grabbed a few bottle of whiskey from behind the bar, and left the pub with Lana.

As they walked towards a tourist couple standing next to two motorcycles near a bronze statue of Fudgie the Dingle Dolphin, an old, rusty Vauxhall Astra sped by them on the only road out of town, with Orin behind the wheel and the Archer twins locked in the trunk.

Leon, who had been chewing through the duct tape over his mouth for the past hour, finally managed to break through the silver strip and spat out a wad of tape. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the trunk, and saw Lewis beside him, still gagged. Despite the dark and the duct tape covering his face, Leon could see his twin smile at his accomplishment, encouraging him to continue.

Leon started gnawing at the duct tape around his wrists, determined to free himself and his brother.


	4. From Seamus, With Love

Note: Super sorry for the big fat delay; the phone I use to write on broke (it had all of the original versions of everything I've written for Fan Fic . net so far, including the nearly-finished draft of this chapter...ouch), so I had to start from scratch :( oh well, it's here now, ready and rearing to go, so read up!

Chapter Four: From Seamus, With Love

Seamus Magoon Archer drank the last few drops of vodka left in his tumbler, and set the glass on the charcoal colored marble-topped bar with a soft "clink". It was quiet, but with the dead silence in the penthouse, it sounded like a gunshot to the young defector, causing him to wince.

It was early Sunday morning, and Seamus had been locked up in Archer's penthouse for nearly 3 days. After being fitted for his new set of suits and other clothes by Woodhouse, and the fact that Bartleby refused to come anywhere near him, his boredom had reached a dangerous level, especially now since he had just finished off the last of Archer's massive alcohol collection.

He had to hide out in the penthouse until ISIS could forge his death records and plant them within the KGB's databank; unfortunately, with Krieger being...distracted from his usual duties by Pam at all hours of the day and night lately, the process of producing Seamus's false files was taking longer than usual.

Just as Seamus was about to hop off the barstool, the phone rang, making the teenager jump, startled at the sound cutting through the silence.

Picking himself up off the floor, he heard Woodhouse answer the call and begin walking towards him in the lounge area.

"Miss Poovey for you, sir"

Woodhouse smiled and handed the wireless phone to Seamus, who had sat back down at the bar. Having been trained as a black ops agent for most of his life and living either in the dingy, cold SPETZNAZ barracks or whatever random hole he could find in the field during assignments, Seamus found the concept of a valet very odd and unnecessary. He had been treating Woodhouse very kindly and apologized profusely for knocking him out on Friday. In turn, Woodhouse had finally found a friend in the newest member of the growing Archer family.

Seamus smiled back at Woodhouse, and accepted the phone with a polite nod.

"Zdrastvooyte, Ms Poovey. This is Seamus."

Pam, in her office at ISIS, rolled her eyes at the teen's politeness over the speakerphone on her desk. She was at the small bar near the door, pouring absinthe into a beer mug half full of fresh cream.

"Uh, yeah. Hey, we were trying to find your file in the KGB's system, and we couldn't find it...so, either you've been lying about who you were working for, or you're some kinda mass hallucination everyone's been seeing the past few days, and I banned LSD use during work hours around here, so...what's the situation, kid?"

Seamus's light brown eyes clenched shut, frustrated with himself for not clarifying his past with his adoptive father's agency. He looked under the bar to see if there was any bottles of liquor left, and explained himself while he searched.

"Ah, da, da. My apologies, Ms Poovey; I was a member of SPETZNAZ, specifically, a member of Vympel, which isn't exactly KGB, just branch of. Vympel records are much more, ah, zashifrovayynne than regular KGB"

Pam stirred the light green, near-lethal cocktail in her beer mug and raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar Russian term as she sat down at her desk, looking over Seamus's file.

"Um, happen to know what zashafrovy-whatchacallit means in English?"

Seamus, although bilingual in both English and Russian, still struggled with some of the more esoteric English terms sometimes, since he had spoken almost exclusively Russian for the past decade.

"Ah, prastee- I mean, sorry, Ms Poovey. I meant to say, the network for Vympel agents is much more encrypted than the KGB standard, considering the nature of our work. My information is difficult to locate due to this..."

Pam jotted down what he said into the blue folder, took a drink of her Green Russian, and noticed something interesting under Seamus's skills section on his info sheet.

"Gotcha, gotcha. Hey, it says here that you were actually trained in both human intelligence and signals intelligence? Were ya any good at computers and that sorta shit?"

Seamus's eyes brightened; he had inherited his biological father's knack for numbers, and loved technology.

"Da! I actually helped build the mainframe in KGB headquarters! It was like my rebenok! Erm, I mean, my baby! Why, do you need someone for computer at ISIS, Ms Poovey? I would be very happy to take assignment..."

He crossed his fingers as he held the phone against his ear, waiting for his potential new boss to reply as he reached far back into the space beneath the bar and heard the promising, telltale clanking of glass.

Pam leaned back in her chair, and took a long, contemplative drink as she mulled it over.

"Y'know what, Seamus, it's strange, but I think an under-aged, alcoholic, computer whiz/field agent might actually be a good fit here at ISIS. I'll hafta think about it some more, run it by a few folks and have ya take the aptitude and field tests after all that shit, but yeah, I'd vouch for ya"

Seamus silently pumped his fist in the air in celebration, not only for the possible job, but he had also found a dusty, half-full bottle of bourbon underneath the bar.

"Bal'shoye spaseeba, Ms Poovey! Thank you! Please, let me know if I may be of any assistance in getting my name cleared so I may begin my ISIS training! Thank you again!"

Pam smiled at the speakerphone, finding Seamus's enthusiasm refreshing from the typical cynicism her employees bestowed upon her.

"Yeah yeah, kid, don't mention it. Just sit tight in Archer's place for now til we can get you all sorted out over in Moscow. Later, tater!"

Pam hung up the phone, finished her drink, and felt very optimistic about her decision. Just as she was about to get up to refill her beer mug, she felt a hand grab her ankle from under her desk.

She sighed and looked down to see a distraught-looking Dr Krieger.

"So, what, are you going to force him to do...terrible, awful things to your body like you did to me, or are you going to break his heart as well?!"

Krieger stood up and faced Pam. He had been "servicing" Pam in secret for almost 3 months. Surprisingly, in that timeframe, he had developed some genuine, normal human feelings towards his boss...some would identify these emotions as "love", but Krieger had a difficult time classifying exactly what he felt for Pam. All he knew was that it was real. More real than anything he felt for his former hologramatic bride, Sakura-Chan. He hadn't even turned on her projection unit in a month.

Pam, feeling guilty for toying with Krieger's fragile grasp on reality, sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist. She looked up into his bright green eyes, and pulled him in close to her face as she whispered her reply.

"No, Dick Nuts. That's cuz I don't love him. Plus he's a kid, and that's just weird."

A wide, half-insane smile spread across Krieger's bearded face as he tightened his grip around Pam's ample waist, relieved and, admittedly, very aroused to hear that his feelings for her were mutual.

Pam gave him a devilish grin, and hit the button on her desk to lock the door to her office as the two "freaks" of ISIS melted into one another, expressing their budding love for each other in their own unique way.

Others would've called it disgusting, but they simply called it lovemaking.

* * *

Meanwhile, Near Belfast, Ireland

* * *

Archer laughed happily as he fell from the bright pink sky onto a soft, endless pile of beautiful naked women and bottles of Glengoolie Blue, while an infinite sea of exotic big cats surrounded him, roaring and purring in approval.

Archer rolled around on a carpet made entirely of Eggs Woodhouse while two sets of identical, naked, gorgeous Filipino triplets fed him bites of mango and caressed his entire body with coconut massage oil...suddenly, a sultry, mysterious voice called out to him from far away, distracting him from his bliss.

Sterling was oddly hypnotized by the voice, and followed it blindly into the darkness, leaving his women, booze, eggs, and big cats behind.

Finally, when he looked up into the pitch black sky, his heart dropped when he saw the source of the siren-like voice.

"**STERLING MALORY ARCHER, YOU ARE A VERY, VERY BAD BOY!**"

Malory, his mother, towered over his tiny form. She was clad only in a skimpy black négligée, and held an enormous wooden spoon in her curved, claw-like hand.

Sterling screamed in terror, and ran away, only to be scooped up effortlessly by Mother.

He cried desperately as he felt the slick coldness of her claws pull down his pants roughly as she put him over her bare knee. Sterling tried not to look, but couldn't help but catch a glimpse up his mother's inner thigh through the tears, feeling ashamed when he saw her lace panties through the black négligée, and even more ashamed when he felt his erection stiffen against her lap.

"**YOU ARE A HORRIBLE LITTLE BOY, STERLING! YOU ARE VERY, VERY BAD!**"

Sterling clenched his eyes in a dizzying mixture of fear, pain, and unbelievable sexual ecstasy as the wooden spoon cracked loudly over his buttocks. His toes curled as he drew in a sharp breath, in both apprehension and anticipation of the next strike...but the next hit never came.

He did.

Archer screamed in horror and sprang upright, drenched in sweat and, looking down, other bodily fluids. He panted heavily, the fear and sickening Oedipal lust still fresh in his mind. Mortified, he pulled his sleeping bag up to his chin, whimpered a bit, and looked around; Lana was still sleeping soundly next to him in her own sleeping bag, and the two old Triumph motorcycles they had bought from the tourists back in Dingle hours before were parked nearby, across from their smoldering campfire on the coastline of the Irish Sea. They had been driving most of the night, and had finally decided to pull over to rest before making the last stretch out to the port in Belfast to get on the ferry to England.

The embarrassingly erotic wet dreams Archer had been experiencing the past few months were becoming more intense and more frequent the longer he went without hearing from Malory. She had been effectively MIA since she retired from ISIS last year, and had seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth. Not even Ron Cadillac, her husband, knew where she went, and had since filed for divorce and resumed the life of a bachelor in response to Malory's disregard of her husband and the rest of her family.

Sterling ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, took a couple of deep breaths, and shakily unscrewed the top of his nearby bottle of whiskey. As he drank, his anxiety dissipated and replaced the empty space within the bottle with every sip. Archer stared off to his right, and watched the ocean roll up and drift back under the chilly light fog. The serenity of the ocean, coupled with the warm comfort of the whiskey soothed his nerves, and he eventually relaxed enough to feel tired enough to sleep again.

After he finished the rest of the bottle and cleaned himself off, Archer tossed the soiled tissue into the orange embers of the extinguished campfire, hoping the evidence of his shameful secret would be destroyed by daybreak.

He sighed, kissed Lana's cheek, and wrapped himself snugly into his mummy-style sleeping bag. He usually didn't bother praying, but he prayed hard with every ounce of energy he had left as he drifted back to sleep that his none of his sons would ever become as messed up as him, and that Leon and Lewis were-

* * *

"-OKAY! Dukes, Ra-Ramon...Ramon, there's no need to-**I'M NOT YELLING**!"

Ray Gillette, former ISIS agent, gritted his teeth as he held his phone against his ear. The group of children in the skiing class he was teaching that day looked amongst each other, confused.

Ray had been living in Gstaad, Switzerland with Ramon Limon, his lover and disavowed Cuban agent, for a little over a year. Unfortunately, their idealistic relationship was anything but recently, and the constant fights and threats of leaving him had pushed Ray's patience to the brink.

"What?! Oh, THAT IS IT! WE ARE THROUGH, RAMON! _NOBODY SCREWS RAY GILLETTE UNLESS HE ASKS FOR IT_!" Ray yelled into the cell phone, and broke it in two. He threw the chunks of plastic into the snow with a sob, and skied down the slope, fighting back the tears streaming down his cheeks.

The small group of kids at the top of the bunny slope shrugged and tried following Ray down the hill, resulting in a large, multi-colored pile of crying, red-faced children and a growing crowd of angry, rich parents surrounding the mess.

Ray skidded to a stop at the base of the mountain, next to the ski lodge. Sniffling, he removed his skis, gloves, and goggles, ready to march in and resign from his ski instructor job...after a few drinks at the bar and squeezing in a little revenge flirting with the hunky new Austrian bartender, of course.

He shook the powdery snow off his hat and gloves as he walked towards the bar; the bartender, Klein, had his back turned, giving Ray a generous amount of time to ogle his backside.

As Ray stared and shoved his gloves into his back pocket, he bumped into a short, grey fox-skinned shoulder that he didn't see in front of him. He looked down, and saw that he was now soaked in-

"-mulled wine on _grey fox_?! You'd better have a good-oh, you've got to be _shitting_ me. Ray?"

Malory Archer looked up at the equally surprised Ray, both of them covered in rapidly cooling spiced red wine.

Ray scowled back down at Malory as he shook the wine off of his hands. He pulled out one of his gloves, and started wiping down his stained wool cable-knit sweater.

"Aww, shit. Yeah, of course it'd have to be _you_, wouldn't it? Hi, Malory."

The former head of ISIS rolled her eyes at Ray, grabbed the other glove from his back pocket and began dabbing at her fur coat.

"Hi yourself, Missy! What the hell are you doing here? That oaf Pam didn't send you out here to find me, did she? We had a deal."

Ray shut his eyes and shook his head 'no'. He silently shuffled towards the bar with his shoulders slumped; his day could not get any worse. At least, he thought it couldn't until Klein walked up to him, while Malory sat next to him at the bar.

He practically went catatonic in embarrassment and frustration when Malory began hitting on Klein (a known and very open homosexual) unsuccessfully, as loudly and obviously as possible.

Ray sank in his seat, his face a bright shade of crimson, as Malory continued complaining to him about Klein long after he had left to fix their drinks, her voice becoming white noise as Ray just sighed and nodded.

Despite his best efforts, Malory was one of his problems once again.

* * *

Leon snored softly beside his brother Lewis, oblivious to the half-chewed wad of duct tape between his teeth. He grumbled and spat out the tape, waking up to the nauseating bobbing of rough waters, still locked in the trunk of the Astra.

Orin got the Vauxhall on the ferry en route to Liverpool, England without any hindrance or paying any fees, thanks to his still-valid MI6 ID. All he had to do was flash the card at any and all authority figures that tried to question the otherwise bizarre scene of a wild-eyed man with a bloodied nose and a suit that reeked of the sea driving a rusty old car with a lot of noise coming out of the trunk, and was waved on through all customs, traffic stops, and tollbooths between Dingle and Dublin throughout the night.

As he sat on top of the Astra's trunk, Orin lit his annual "birthday cigarette", and inhaled the intoxicating blue-grey smoke into his lungs. He savored the seductive, familiar rush of dopamine from the nicotine trickling into his bloodstream. He exhaled slowly through his broken nostrils, relishing in the tingly feeling running up and down his spine.

He shivered in ecstasy, and softly bit the filter end of his singular cigarette between his chapped lips to commemorate his 44th year of life. He kicked the door of the trunk with his bare heel as he took another long drag.

"Oi, it's me birthday, you little shits! Aren't you lads gonna wish me a happy birthday?"

Orin took one last, long puff of the cigarette, and flicked the butt at the metallic grate of the ferry's deck. Finally, Leon yelled from the trunk in response.

"Fuck you, you massive asshole. I hope you lose a friggin' lung!"

Orin laughed maniacally at the boy's torment, and kicked the trunk again. He didn't hear the latch of the trunk click open as he hopped down and wandered off to go stretch his legs while the ferry passed by the Isle of Man.

Lewis pushed the trunk open with his head, and looked around, astonished. Leon popped his head up too, and looked over at his brother; Lewis's mouth was still covered in duct tape.

Leon grinned wickedly and grabbed the loose end of the tape over his twin's face, acting as if he was going to rip it off. Lewis's eyes went wide, managing a frightened, muffled shriek from beneath the tape as he grabbed Leon's wrist and shook his head madly.

Instead of ripping the tape off, Leon gently and carefully peeled off the duct tape away from Lewis's face. He was not surprised at all when Lewis backhanded him for even joking about ripping the tape off.

The Archer brothers were surprised, however, when they heard Leon's cell phone ringing to the tune of "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge in his messenger bag from the back seat of the Astra as they climbed out of the trunk. How it had survived the plane crash was a mystery in of itself, but how the battery was still alive was even stranger.

They were both _extremely _surprised and confused to see "Big Brother" appear on the caller ID screen. The timing of the call was too well-placed to be pure coincidence, or to question who was on the other end of the line.

Leon pushed the answer button as him and Lewis started running through the maze of parked cars, carrying their messenger bags on their shoulders.

Seamus smiled when he heard Leon pick up, and looked up at the large flat screen on Archer's dismantled, re-purposed TV acting as a GPS locator for Leon's phone.

"H-hello...?"

"Hello, Little Brother Leon. This is your Big Brother. If you and Little Brother Lewis wish to get away from that prick Orin, listen to my instruction and follow them _exactly_, da?"

Leon vaulted over a guardrail and landed down a level on the ferry, following closely behind Lewis, heading towards the escape boats. A group of guards were now pointing at the boys, with Orin yelling to go after them.

"Sure, whatever you say, Morpheus! Just get us the hell away from this crazy douchebag!"

Seamus nodded silently, and adjusted the controls that was once Leon and Lewis's video game console to follow the blinking red dot of his new brothers more closely.

"No problem. What else is a Big Brother for, but to protect his Little Brothers?"

Seamus pulled up an array of surveillance camera feeds from throughout the ferry on the screen, with several more available at his fingertips, from Liverpool to London, and fixed the headset phone more comfortably over his ears. He was going to be busy for a while.

Even though he couldn't leave the penthouse until ISIS faked his death certificate for him, Seamus was going to try to help his new family from the other side of the planet.

Plus, the whole thing would look great on his ISIS resumé.


	5. Communication Breakdown

Chapter Five: Communication Breakdown

Leon and Lewis sprinted towards the small, bright orange lifeboat on the side of the ferry as the small mob of passengers and security officers lead by Orin followed behind them.

Leon had clipped his cell phone onto the strap of his messenger bag, and was listening closely to the instructions from 'Big Brother' over speakerphone.

Back in his bedroom at Archer's penthouse in New York , Seamus had removed his suit jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He paced back and forth as he monitored his new brothers on the large screen. Seamus hadn't even met Leon and Lewis yet, but judging from how skilled the twins seemed in evasion and hand-to-hand combat, he already knew that they would become fast friends once he navigated them back home.

"Da, good! Okay, tell Lewis to take the stairs to his left...NOW. Yes, and you, Leon, get around that fat mudak to your right, and then go upstairs in 3, 2..."

* * *

"-one, shut your sad little potato hole. Two, THIS IS A GRENADE. And three, I think a grenade is a valid passport to anywhere I damn well want to go!"

Lana, gripping onto a grenade, stared down the asthmatic, pudgy man in the Port of Belfast ticket booth through the thick glass window. He nodded nervously, and waved her and a very happy Archer through, walking their motorcycles through the turnstile as they entered the busy port.

Archer laughed as he walked his bike next to Lana's, impressed with her.

"Ha, Lana, that was awesome! You had that little fat guy practically shitting himself!"

Lana smirked, pleased with herself as well.

"Yuuuup, there's no slowing down _this_ mama bear when her cubs are in trouble...always never...forget. That. Oh shit."

She trailed off as they both looked up at the TV screens mounted on the walls, and saw Leon and Lewis featured in a breaking news segment.

"We have just received a report of a possible international terrorist attack happening right now aboard the MS Norbank, heading towards Liverpool, involving these two highly trained, possibly deadly child soldiers, who have yet to be identified"

Archer and Lana's jaws dropped in disbelief. Orin had notified the media and convinced everyone on the Norbank that the Archer twins were terrorists he had apprehended and was transporting them for trial in London when they escaped.

The live footage showed a closeup of Leon jumping on the back of a huge security officer that was attempting to grab Lewis from behind, using one of his shoelaces as a garrot to strangle his fat neck. The aerial camera panned around to catch one last glimpse of the twins as they both jumped into the small lifeboat, falling into the choppy sea below, and speeding away into the mist.

"We have the suspected terrorists' captor, MI6 and ISIS agent Orin Steel, with us via telephone. Orin?"

A photo of Orin from last year's ISIS Christmas party (wearing a hideous, sequined mustard-yellow reindeer sweater knitted and given to him by Pam) appeared on the screen as he spoke.

"Oh great, sure, announce that I'm a bloody secret agent to everyone listening, you stupid woman...erm, sorry. Anywho,listen folks, please do not attempt to apprehend these two terrorists yourself. They may be children, but they are trained to kill and they are _extremely_ dangerous! If you do encounter or see either of them, please contact your local authorities. Oh, and, by the way, these two here are also a part of...whatever the kids are stirred up about. Al-Quida, or some silly shit. Stop these guys too."

An unflattering picture of Lana from Orin's phone of her half awake on their couch with an empty pint of ice cream and the mug shot from Paris PD of an extremely drunken Archer with his middle finger extended appeared in place of Orin's photo.

"Go ahead and use deadly force with these two if you see them. Approach and apprehend them all you want. There's a £1,000,000 reward in it for whoever captures or kills either one of these prats. Just don't fuck up the kids, I'm-I mean, we're not monsters that murder children. Ta!"

Archer and Lana had dropped their motorcycles and were sprinting through the crowded port towards the docks; two police officers had spotted them and were calling in the sighting to Interpol as they chased the couple through the port.

"Goddammit, Lana! Your husband is SUCH a massive asshole! I tried to warn you, but _noooo_, you just HAD to go and marry the shit out of him instead of ME, didn't you?!"

Lana punched one of the approaching cops in the face, knocking him out cold. She quickly removed his bright yellow kevlar vest, and put it on while Archer shot the other cop who was aiming his sidearm at Lana. They kept running, the docks only a few yards away, but with a hoard of people eager to make a fortune rapidly surrounding them.

"Oh, well excuse me, Archer! I thought he was stable, not like _some other_ guy I almost married! At least Orin didn't have deep-seated mommy issues, a bloated liver, and had banged as many women as Wilt-freaking-Chamberlain!"

Archer narrowed his eyes at Lana as he pulled a pin out of a grenade and threw it into the growing crowd behind them.

"Oh yeah? Well at least _I'm_ not some psychotic limey douchebag that calls the two awesome kids he kidnapped TERRORISTS, and tells everyone from here to the goddamned Shire to go ahead and kill the shit out of us for a million pounds! Or, whatever the hell that is in real money...whatever it is, it's probably still a lot, though!"

The grenade detonated, creating a large crater in the middle of the mob and rocking the ground of the port terminal beneath their feet. Archer kicked a man directly in his face who had been running towards him before the blast, displacing his jaw as he fell. The man was trampled by the crowd chasing after them.

"But really, Lana, right now is all kinds of not the right time for our first argument as an on-off-on-off-on-again couple! Jesus, it's always just shitty timing with you! Our wedding was shitty timing, you wanting to move to England was shitty timing...how about I buy you a watch for our first anniversary!"

Lana gritted her teeth and stared daggers at Archer as she snapped the neck of a sailor on the docks armed with a can of mace before he could spray them. Sterling scowled back at Lana as he grabbed a fleeing captain, held his Walther PPK to his temple, and demanded to take them to his boat.

The captain brought the couple up the gangway to a small, two-story cargo carrier with several brand new BMWs on deck, dubbed the _Olga_. Lana, still seething, tossed two more grenades into the crowd below, brought up the anchor chain, and closed off the gangway as Archer forced the captain upstairs into the ship's control room.

"Well, I- goddammit, Archer, you're right. I'm sorry, honey. I've just been stressed out lately about the boys."

The _Olga_ pulled away from the docks as the two grenades exploded on the deck behind them. An Interpol black hawk helicopter appeared from above the port terminal as the ship pulled into the sea, and started firing twin .40 cal machine guns at the deck, destroying several cars and narrowly missing Lana. Archer, on the upper level of the ship, reached into their munitions bag, and fished out the RPG-7 rocket launcher. He loaded a warhead, rested it on his shoulder, and aimed it at the helicopter as he shouted back down to her.

"I'm sorry too, Lana! I've been worried about them as well, but fighting each other won't bring our sons home any faster. FIRING!"

Lana smiled and nodded at Archer in agreement. She crouched down and covered her ears as he launched the warhead into the black hawk helicopter.

The huge explosion that resulted from the warhead hitting the helicopter knocked down both Archer and Lana as they watched it crash into the water of the bay in a fiery heap.

Lana went up the stairs, grabbed the munitions bag, and caught up with Archer, who was now carrying the reloaded RPG-7 towards the control room.

"So what now, Archer? Shouldn't we call Pam so she can get Interpol off of us and the kids?"

Archer pulled out his flask from his back pocket, and took a long drink of bourbon as they entered the control room, locking the door behind them. The white-haired, mustachioed captain at the helm cowered when Archer stood next to him.

"Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Since you're doing such a great job with those crappy communication skills, you can talk to Pam. I'll keep an eye on Cap'n Crunch here, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, like not take us towards Liverpool. Right, Cap'n?"

The captain just nodded vigorously in agreement, too petrified to speak. Archer laughed, grabbed their hostage's captain's hat from his head, and put it on himself as he took another pull on his flask, the RPG-7 still slung over his shoulder.

Lana rolled her eyes as she pulled out the satellite phone, and called Pam's desk. Strangely, the call went directly to voicemail.

"Huh, I wonder where the hell Pam is?"

* * *

Krieger and Pam rolled out of his van and onto the cold concrete floor in the ISIS parking garage. His newest van had a custom airbrush rendition of "A Show of Vans " album art on the side.

The couple had been repeatedly consumating their relationship for over 24 hours in the van; neither one aware of the international incident their agency was linked to that was unfolding on the other side of the planet. The couple, who were stripped down to the last remaining shreds of their underwear and covered in the collective filth of booze, cocaine, and sex, shakily got off the ground, and, looking out the garage doors, saw that it was nighttime. They were both grinning ear to ear despite their rough state, and hung onto each others' shoulders, laughing as they wobbled unsteadily towards the elevator to go back upstairs to ISIS headquarters.

Pam rested her bare back against the wall of the elevator and slid down to sit on the grimy carpet as Krieger hit the button for their floor. He sat down beside her, a goofy, exhausted, half-drunk smile plastered across his coke-dusted face. He took off the blaze orange ballistic goggles and hung them around his neck as he brushed his rubber-gloved hand over Pam's cheek.

"Oh Pam, last night was better than getting a fully-functional battlebot signed by Neil Peart on Christmas morning..."

Pam laughed, completely happy but incredibly tired. She peeled a used condom off her arm, flicked it to the floor, and rested her head on Krieger's shoulder with a contented sigh.

"Yeah Krieger, y'know...I haven't been this happy since Malory made me head of ISIS last year so she could go bum around the world before she reunited with Archer's real dad in Scotland. She said she wanted to see him again before her looks went down the crapper, but I'd say that was about 20 years too la-OH, holy shit snacks! I, uh, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone that."

Krieger's bloodshot eyes widened in surprise as he helped Pam stand when the doors chimed open on their floor.

Pam wrapped an arm around Krieger's waist to steady her large frame as they entered the dark, empty ISIS office, the light from the streetlights outside the only source of illumination. As they neared the break room, Krieger finally spoke up.

"So...judging from that and the messed up nightmares he's been having, I'm assuming Archer doesn't know where Malory went or why?"

Sterling had told Krieger about the traumatizing wet dreams a few months ago to obtain a supply of prazosin to stop the frequency of the nightmares, and had threatened to murder him if he told anyone about the running theme in his nightmares.

Pam opened the door to the newly-remodeled break room, turned on the lights, and grabbed a can of shandy from the fridge.

"**NOBODY** knows about it, Krieger, _especially_ Archer. Dammit, and that was the longest I ever kept a secret, too...oh well, new personal record. But hey, don't go blabbing about this to anyone, all right? Part of the deal I made with Malory was that she could blow up ISIS with her remote detonator thing from anywhere in the world if she finds out I told anyone about what she was actually doing when she retired, so unless you want your lab to go kablooey along with the rest of this place, you'll keep your trap shut."

Krieger snapped open a can of shandy for himself and nodded as he took a drink.

"Oh, I know, she made me rig the explosives myself before she took off for Sicily. Hey, speaking of Italy, do you maybe wanna order some pizza? I'm starving."

Pam spat out her shandy, and sat down at the table, looking up at Krieger.

"Wait, so you knew where bombs were planted this whole time, and you didn't bother to disarm them the millisecond that crazy old bitch left with with friggin' _detonator_?!"

Krieger grabbed the menu for Gino's Pizza from the bulletin board next to the phone on the wall, and read through the list of toppings.

"Nnnnnope, didn't cross my mind. But if you want, dear, I can go take care of that after dinner. Hey, do you like pineapple on your pizza? That's kind of a dealbreaker for me in a relationship...I REALLY hate pineapple..."

Pam, too exhausted to comprehend what she just heard, buried her head in her arms as she sat at the table, shaking her head at her boyfriend.

Thinking she was responding "no" to her stance on pineapple, and not shaking her head in utter disbelief of his lapses in common sense, Krieger smiled and kissed the back of Pam's head as he dialed the number for the pizzeria.

"Phew, that's great. Hi, Gino, it's Krieger. Could I get two 16-inch original crusts with everything on them _except pineapple_ deliveredto Popeye's Suds and Duds? Yep yep, just bill it to my account..."

He covered the phone with his hand and smiled down at the crumpled pile of Pam at the table.

"Oh, I had a feeling you were truly the gal for me, Pam."

Without lifting her head up, she raised her palm in the air as Krieger hung up the phone and gave her a high-five.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Belgium

* * *

Ray and Malory stood in line at Brussels International Airport, waiting to board the airbus heading for London. The unlikely traveling companions decided that, since they were both heading west, travelling together made sense since they could both get discounted ticket prices if Ray said he was Malory's private nurse and she had dementia. Despite their hatred for one another, they both agreed on at least two things: lying to get what you want and generous discounts.

Malory drummed her fingers on her arm impatiently. She checked her watch and saw that they had been standing in line for nearly an hour.

"Oh my god, what's the holdup? Why aren't we boarding?"

Ray looked around the busy airport terminal; all flights were grounded, and there was a larger-than-usual police presence.

"Huh, yeah, this is kinda weird..."

Just then, the intercom speakers above their heads crackled on with an announcement.

"Attention passengers, due to reports of a terrorist attack in the Irish Sea, all international flights have been canceled until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience. We have arranged for complimentary lodging accommodations for all of our international ticket holders, with free shuttle service. Auf wiedersehen, and thank you for flying Brussels International."

Ray and Malory looked at each other, suspicious. As they followed the other groaning and complaining passengers shuffling to the exits, Malory looked at the TV above the food court, and grabbed Ray's arm, pointing at the screens.

"What no- oh shit, is that Archer and Lana?!"

The TVs throughout the airport, all tuned to BBC News, showed live aerial footage of Archer, still wearing the captain's hat aboard the hijacked cargo ship, holding the RPG-7 and waving at the camera from the ship's control room window next to the crying captain. Lana smacked Archer's head, knocking the hat off. As the camera panned away from the now arguing couple, English closed captions came on, and read, "...armed and dangerous. The two terrorists aboard the _Olga_ appear to be working in conjunction with two child soldiers who escaped from the MS Norbank earlier today, who escaped from MI6 captivity, and remain at large..."

Malory's eye twitched when the footage of Leon and Lewis escaping in the lifeboat earlier that day played on the screen.

"I leave for one _measly year_, and the world thinks my idiot family is a bunch of TERRORISTS? Oh...that is just-**THIS IS WHY I NEVER TAKE LONG VACATIONS**!"

Malory searched through her purse, took out her phone, and called Pam's desk. She eyed the remote detonator in her bag as the phone rang, tempted to blow up ISIS out of spite. Malory raised an eyebrow when her call went to Pam's voicemail.

"Dammit, why isn't that fat lummox answering her phone? She can call off those Interpol goons and save Sterling and the twins with one simple phone call! Doesn't she know I can't call them off myself anymore? I'm just a civilian now..."

Ray lead Malory by the arm through the busy terminal towards the exits, and onto one of the airport shuttles to the complimentary hotel, her phone still to her ear.

After finding that Pam's voicemail was full, she hung up, shook her head, and hesitantly dialed Sterling's cell phone number.

She had planned on speaking to her son only after she had gone to Scotland for the final leg of her journey, but the recent turn of global events were more pressing than maintaining a travel itinerary.

Malory took a deep breath as Sterling's phone rang, and released it in a relieved sigh when he heard his voice.

"Hello? Hey, sorry, I'm a little busy right now..."

She smiled, comforted to hear her son again for the first time in over a year.

"Hello, Sterling, it's me. Please, just listen. I don't know why you're doing all of this, but hijacking a ship and causing this much trouble can't be the best solution! Just...please, Sterling, use your best judgment. All I ask is that you leave my grandsons out of this! I-I lov-"

A sound clip of a whining trombone played, followed by Archer laughing loudly, abruptly interrupting Malory's heartfelt plea.

"HA, voicemail! Oh man, this bit never gets old! Leave a message after the beep, stupid."

Malory suppressed the strong urge to smash the phone against the shuttle window, and instead repeated what she wanted him to hear, uninterrupted.

When she finished, she wiped away a stray tear, hung up, and put her phone back in her handbag. Ray, who had overheard the entire message, sniffed back a tear as well.

As they stepped off the shuttle in front of their hotel, Ray put a hand on Malory's shoulder.

"Malory, that was...that was downright beautiful. Why couldn't you say something like that to Archer before?"

Malory stopped and looked at Ray.

"Because, he would've wound up like you, Fancy Pants. C'mon, let's go rent a car and get to stinking pit of Liverpool so I can save my idiot family...maybe you'll get lucky at the rental agency and they'll have a Miata for you in Barbie playhouse pink."

Ray just stared at the back of Malory's head, dumbfounded at how she could be a sweet old woman pouring her heart out to her son one second, and...well, Malory Archer, the next.

"**GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE CLOSET, LIZA! DOUBLE TIME! LET'S GO!**"

Ray snapped to attention, and ran to catch up to Malory. As they marched towards the hotel's information desk, Ray really started to see why Archer was so messed up.


	6. No Alarms and No Surprises, Please

Chapter Six: No Alarms and No Surprises, Please

"Okay, Little Brothers, almost there. If you keep up your current speed, you should be seeing the shoreline of Crosby Beach in just a few minutes. If you see a bunch of statues of some giant naked guy, you're in right place."

Leon and Lewis nodded at the speakerphone, and shut off the small outboard motor on the lifeboat as they drifted towards the sandy beach under the moonlight.

They had evaded the swarms of Interpol helicopters and speedboats patrolling the Irish Sea thanks to Seamus's expert guidance.

Leon held onto the side of the small boat and dry heaved into the churning water. Between the choppy sea and the accumulated stress of being in a plane crash, locked in a trunk, becoming an international criminal overnight, acute alcohol withdrawal, and the fact neither him or Lewis had eaten in almost 4 days, both of the kids had been feeling incredibly ill.

Lewis, worried about his brother, patted Leon on his back as he heaved one last time before turning back around and leaning his back against the fiberglass of the boat.

Seamus frowned when he heard the familiar sound of Leon wretching on the phone, fully empathizing on his brothers' current state. He remembered during SPETZNAZ training, he was forced to starve for two weeks, stay awake for three days, and then accurately shoot down 15 moving targets up to 100 yards from his position during a blizzard.

Seamus shook the bad memory of his past from his mind, and looked back at the screen; from a security camera mounted on the side of a building facing the beach, he could see the blurry image of the twins pulling the lifeboat onto shore between the giant Iron Men statutes.

"Ah-ha, excellent, my brothers! It is good to see you once more. Leave the lifeboat, you do not need to waste the last of your energy dragging around heavy-as-yajtza piece of evidence. Little Brother Leon, you must rehydrate very soon, or you may fall extremely ill. There is drinking fountain to your left about 50 yards away, near the restrooms."

Leon smiled weakly when looked up and saw the drinking fountain up ahead under the warm glow of a streetlight.

"Thank you...for helping us...Big Brother. We couldn't have made it th-this far without you..."

Lewis grabbed Leon's shoulder as the exhausted boy's knees suddenly went weak. Thankfully, he caught his twin before he tripped on the steps leading up to the fountain.

As Lewis steadied the barely-conscious Leon enough to lean forward on the fountain, two figures emerged from the bathrooms behind them.

"Oi, hey, is that guy a skag head or somethin'? He looks half dead!"

Lewis looked over the shoulder, and saw two girls standing behind them. The one who had spoken had hot pink hair put up in pigtails, a black leather jacket covered in buttons, and wore fishnet stockings under her cutoff denim miniskirt.

Her friend, a tall girl with freckles and long red hair wearing an old WWII army trenchcoat, extinguished her cigarette under her boot and rushed over to help Leon drink from the fountain; Lewis was fixated on the cute pink-haired girl behind him, not even remotely aware of Leon anymore.

Lewis stepped away from the fountain towards her, ignoring the fact that the redhead had to catch Leon as he slumped to the side, still gulping away from the fountain.

"Uh, I have no clue what the hell a skag head is, but don't worry, he'll be fine. But not as fine as _you_...I'm Lewis Archer, and this..."

Leon stopped drinking water to loudly gasp for air, scaring the redhead before leaning his head down to keep drinking from the fountain.

"...very thirsty guy hugging the water fountain is my brother, Leon Archer. And what might your name be, gorgeous?"

The pink-haired girl, despite being slightly older than the twins, blushed and smiled at Lewis's charms.

"Well hello, Lewis, my name's Molly, and me friend over there is Emily..."

Emily waved at Lewis, and stepped away as Leon finally stopped drinking. Grabbing onto Emily's waist, he wiped his soaked face against the back of his free hand, panting heavily.

"**FUCK ME SIDEWAYS**, that's...that is SO much better! Whew! Ooh, hey, how you doin' there, tall, red, and beautiful?"

Emily grinned down at Leon, blushed,and rubbed the back of her calf with the toe of her combat boot nervously.

Seamus, watching from a security camera posted on the bathroom, nodded his head, impressed with the boys' inherited ability with girls. He hung up his telephone headset to allow his brothers a little privacy, now that it seemed they were in good hands.

"Der 'mo, they're gonna have to teach me how to pull khvost like that when they get back home, damn..."

Leon and Lewis, feeling re-energized, walked off with their new friends into town, passing a much-appreciated bottle of stolen gin from Molly's jacket between the four of them.

The twins, their arms around the waists of the two giggling girls, bumped fists behind their backs as they walked up the open street towards a very inviting-looking hamburger joint.

Seamus laughed and shook his head at his little brothers' good fortune, and kept an eye on the situation from the camera feeds from the lampposts to make sure the twins weren't in any-

* * *

"-_Danger_ Zone, y'know, Kenny Loggins? Jesus, Cap'n Crunch, don't tell me you've never seen Top Gun!"

The captain sobbed loudly, still terrified of his captors. Lana sat cross-legged on the floor in the control room of the _Olga_, still trying, unsuccessfully, to contact ISIS on the sat phone.

They had finally gotten Interpol and the news choppers to leave them alone, thanks to Archer's wildly liberal use of the RPG-7, and the ship was quickly nearing the Port of Liverpool.

Lana finally gave up trying to call Pam, and stood up, stretching her sore back. She went over to where Archer sat, and stood behind him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He leaned his head back to look up at her, his grinning, upside-down face underneath the stolen captain's hat making her laugh.

"Hey Lana, did you know Horatio Magellan Crunch here has never even _heard_ of Top Gun? Shit, no wonder he cries so damn much...which, by the way, Cap'n, seriously, knock off the waterworks. You're kinda starting to bum me out..."

The captain bit his quivering lip, trying to stifle his sobs.

Archer rolled his eyes at their emotional hostage. Lana walked around to sit on Archer's lap, distracting him from tormenting the captain.

"Y'know, Archer, you look kinda sexy in that stupid hat..."

Lana brushed her palm against Archer's chest, making his grip on her hip tighten in response.

"Mmm, well I guess I'll have to keep it after all of this is over...ooh, hey, look, we're here!"

Archer stood up quickly, accidentally dropping Lana.

"Uh, whoops. Sorry Lana..."

The _Olga_ pulled up to an empty dock, and the captain dropped the anchor from a button on the ship's controls. Surprisingly, the docks were completely deserted, without a single sign of Interpol or even the local police.

"Wow, I'm almost disappointed, thought we'd get to blow up some more Interpol idiots when we got to Liverpool. Oh well."

As Archer and Lana unlocked the door of the control room and turned to leave, the weepy captain finally spoke up.

"Please...please lad, can I have me hat back? It...it was me dad's..."

Archer paused, took the hat off, and handed it back to the captain.

"Sure thing, Crunchy, just promise me you'll knock off the hysterics from now on, all right? Don't think your old man would've been happy with you crying like a starving vegan at a steakhouse all the damn time."

The captain nodded one last time and quickly pulled his hat over his balding head. He blew his nose in his handkerchief as he watched his captors finally leave the _Olga_. Before leaving the dock, Archer turned and shouted up to the control room from below, "And don't forget, Cap'n, watch Top Gun, you big fat crybaby!"

Archer and Lana left the docks and wandered into the calm streets of Liverpool, grateful they weren't recognized by the few passerby out that night. Archer's stomach grumbled loudly, catching his attention.

"Oh man, that's crazy. I've been so worried about the kids, I've been forgetting to eat this whole time! Think we can grab a quick burger here without being recognized as public enemies number one?"

Archer pointed his thumb across the street to the same burger joint the Archer twins were hanging out behind of at that exact moment. Leon, Lewis, and their female companions sat in a circle beside the restaurant's dumpster in the alley, eating and laughing as they passed the bottle of booze around, bragging to the girls about their heroic escape from Orin and Interpol.

As Archer and Lana crossed the street, their eyes brightened when they recognized their sons' voices ringing out from the alleyway.

The astonished parents ran around to the back of the burger restaurant, and nearly screamed in joy when they saw Leon and Lewis, alive and unharmed.

The twins dropped their food and the bottle of gin, and ran into Archer and Lana's outstretched arms. The reunited family held onto each other tightly, overjoyed to be together once more.

Archer, teary-eyed and smiling uncontrollably, kneeled down and laughed, shaking his head in disbelief at the odds of finding his sons in a random alley.

"I can't believe it! It's so good to see you guys again! I-I was so worried that that asshole Orin hurt you..."

Archer blinked away his tears, and hugged Leon and Lewis tightly, both boys crying happily into the warm, black wool of their father's coat.

Molly and Emily sighed happily and smiled at each other as they watched the heartwarming scene, finishing the bottle of gin.

Lana looked up from her sons and noticed the girls, who were leaning against the brick wall of the restaurant.

"Hey, who's your friends over there, guys?"

Leon and Lewis sniffled, let go of Archer, and introduced Molly and Emily. As Lana shook the girls' hands, Archer looked down at Leon and Lewis with a proud grin, pointing at the girls and nodding approvingly.

After saying thanks to the two punk girls for keeping Leon and Lewis company and getting directions from them to a deserted building where they could hide out for the night, Lana walked back to Archer and their kids.

"Well, guys, we gotta keep moving if we want to stay a step ahead of Orin and Interpol. Let's get going..."

Leon and Lewis nodded. Before they left to follow their parents out of the alley, they stopped when Molly tapped Lewis's shoulder.

"Hey, Lewis, I know we only hung out a little bit, but...well, here, I want you and your brother to have these, to remember us by."

Molly removed two buttons from her jacket, one for The Sex Pistols, and another one for Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and handed them to Lewis. He smiled up at Molly as he accepted the buttons and put them in his pocket. She looked back down at Lewis, and shrugged.

"Oh, what the hell, you don't get a chance to snog an international criminal every day..."

Molly leaned down and kissed Lewis, his blue-green eyes growing wide in surprise.

Emily looked at Leon shyly, and blushed madly. He smirked, and stood on his tiptoes to steal a kiss from her too.

The twins said goodbye to Molly and Emily one last time, and walked off with Archer and Lana into the night.

The reunited Archers talked about their travels as they headed towards the abandoned building the girls had told Lana about to rest and regroup before morning.

Seamus wiped a tear from the tip of his nose as he watched the four of them on the screen. He knew it would've been better to surprise his brothers instead of telling the twins Archer and Lana were near, and his hunch seemed to have paid off.

Woodhouse, who was sitting on the floor next to Seamus with a bowl of lingonberries, squinted his tired old eyes at the screen full of surveillance camera feeds and satellite maps, confused.

"I think something's wrong with the telly, lad, perhaps the aerial's on the blink again?"

Seamus chuckled at Woodhouse, grabbed a handful of lingonberries and continued to monitor his family as they settled in for the night. They had to get as much rest as they could; they had a long trip ahead of them.

Archer slept soundly for the first time in weeks that night, his dreams filled with visions of beating Orin's smug face into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp with his bare hands while Leon, Lewis, and Seamus took turns kicking Orin in the balls. Archer smiled in his sleep, turned to his side, and draped a protective arm across Leon and Lewis sleeping between him and Lana.

He never wanted to wake up.


	7. Bury the Hatchet, Grind the Axe

Chapter Seven: Bury the Hatchet, Grind the Axe

Archer, Lana, and the twins exited the old canning factory they had spent the night in, and the four of them were greeted by something they did not expect.

"Excuse, me, terrorists. Need a lift?"

Malory, wearing a black raincoat and a matching wide-brimmed hat, smirked at her shocked family as she leaned against the armored Range Rover she had bought from the rental agency.

Leon and Lewis ran up and greeted her, happy to see their grandmother for the first time in a year. Lana, grateful to have transportation other than going on foot, greeted her former employer and dragged the two heavy duffle bags to the SUV. Lana looked back, and saw that Archer was frozen to the spot at the entrance of the building.

"Well, Sterling? Aren't you going to thank me for bailing you and my grandsons out of this fiasco? Or are you just gonna stand there like an imbecile all day?"

Sterling narrowed his eyes and walked to Lana and the twins without a word.

"What? Suddenly too good to say 'hello'?"

Continuing to ignore Malory, Archer quietly asked Lana to give them a minute alone. Lana nodded understandingly, and motioned for the boys to get into the Range Rover.

After the trio got in (and was pleasantly surprised to find Ray in the driver's seat, and a box of donuts and coffee waiting for them), Archer took Malory by her wrist and led her around the corner of the building, out of sight of the truck.

Once they were far enough away to be out of earshot, Archer squeezed his eyes tightly against the rage he felt boiling deep in his chest.

"Mother, how...how could you be so...so FUCKING SADISTIC?!"

Malory put a hand over her heart, shocked by her son's unexpected outburst.

"Sadistic? Sadistic _how_? What did I do, aside from ending my vacation and spending my retirement money on that ridiculous truck, and swoop in to rescue you and your sons before you made an even BIGGER fool of yourself? Why, it was obvious you weren't doing a very good-"

Sterling balled his fists, stepped back, and pointed an accusatory finger at Malory's face.

"SADISTIC LIKE THAT, Mother! Jesus god, you just up and disappear without a single phone call or even a lousy friggin' postcard for a WHOLE YEAR without telling me, or Ron, or anyone else left who still gives a shit about you where you went, and you expect me to _not_ be pissed off to high hell when you materialize out of fucking NOWHERE, _uninvited_, mind you, then call me an IMBECILE in front of my _sons_, who I SAVED WITHOUT YOU, my sons, who have been through total hell since last week?! How...HOW FUCKING DARE YOU, YOU HEARTLESS EXCUSE OF A PERSON!"

Archer, too furious to even look at his mother, crossed his arms and turned his back to Malory. For once in her life, she was utterly speechless.

After a few moments without a sound, Archer looked over his shoulder at his mother, who was staring blankly at the ground between them, thinking.

"Well? Come on, speak up! Get it over with! Say whatever awful thing you wanted to say! Like how the only grown men who scream at their mothers are usually autistic, or why I'm wrong to be this pissed off, and how you're completely right for whatever fucked up reason _as usual_...Jesus, yeah, like _you_ always make perfect decisions. Or, or hey, even worse, pull some two-faced, passive-aggressive bullshit like you typically do when you're backed into a corner, and start crying until you guilt me into feeling sorry for you while you keep doing the same goddamned horrible shit the minute I turn my back! Go on! Do your worst, because I don't _give_ a shit. Understand?** I DON'T NEED YOU**."

Malory took off her hat and looked up at her son, her shoulders hung low.

"You're absolutely right, Sterling. About everything. I'm...I'm sorry for treating you like an incompetent child all these years. You have more than proven yourself time and again that you are an outstanding parent who would literally go to the ends of the Earth to protect his sons, no matter the consequence. I...I love the capable, independent, and wonderful person that you've become, Sterling. You truly don't need me, and I'm proud of you for it. I'll be happy to help you through this, if you'd like me too, son. "

Archer unfolded his arms, and observed his Mother carefully for any shred of dishonesty. After a moment, his lip trembled when he could read nothing but truth across Malory's aging features. He finally softened his defensive stance, and opened his arms to her.

"Goddammit, Mother...tha-that's all I've ever wanted to hear from you."

Malory smiled, and embraced her son. Their guards down, she told him what she had been up to the past year, and why they needed to get to Scotland as soon as possible. Archer also explained that he left his phone back home in Manhattan, and had no clue about the messages she had been leaving him about her plans to visit his real father. With the air cleared, they agreed to team up together to help each others' goals as a family.

* * *

After coming up with a plan of action to evade the authorities without the aid of ISIS, defeat Orin, and get to his real father's estate in Scotland within a week, Archer and Malory walked back to the Range Rover, and climbed in.

Archer sat behind the driver's seat, grabbed a donut, and leaned forward as he punched in the address for their next stop into the GPS in the dashboard.

"Hey, Ray, haven't seen you in a while. Where were you? Did you try going to another 'pray away the gay' camp? Because you really ought to get your money back, you look gayer than ever"

Ray glared at Archer through his green aviators as he pulled the SUV into traffic, following the GPS.

"Yep, nice to see you too, Archer. Oh, and you're welcome, since I'm helping you and your internationally-wanted fugitive-ass family escape an international police force...Jesus, not even getting _paid_ for this shit..."

Sterling finished his donut and nudged the back of Ray's seat playfully; he was actually grateful for the help. Archer leaned back into his seat next to Lana, who was searching through Leon's messenger bag, with Lewis's emptied out on the floor.

"You're kidding me, guys...how the hell could you remember to pack a lockpick set, a tranquilizer gun, your passports, a bunch of your father's fake mustaches, a wad of cash, an old cell phone, a whole shit-ton of these itty-bitty liquor bottles which, by the way, I am obviously NOT happy about, and a couple of gross old Tijuana bibles, but not ONE change of clean clothes or a toothbrush between the two of you?!"

Leon and Lewis, who were completely filthy from their ordeal, looked to each other and back to their angry mother.

"Um, because we're _guys_? Seriously, Mom, we didn't pack our training bras and tampons in our purses either, gonna yell at us for that too?"

Archer snorted out a laugh, but quickly stifled himself when he saw Lana shoot him an ominous look. He cleared his throat and turned around to speak to his sons in the backseat.

"Hey, Leon, even though that was friggin' hilarious, _and it was_, you shouldn't talk back to your Mom like that. She actually makes a really good point. Remember what I told you two: a big part of _being_ the best is-"

"-always _looking_ your best", the twins said in unison as they rolled their eyes. Sterling grinned and nodded his head.

"That's right, very good. So yeah, great job on bringing along all that other cool stuff, but next time you cross international waters, be sure to pack a few extra days' worth of suits, spare toothbrushes, and at least one comb, okay? You two are MY kids, there's a certain degree of quality people expect from this particular brand of badass. Brand integrity is important... also, as punishment for you being a smart-ass to your Mom, I'm drinking all of your miniatures, okay?"

"Okay, Dad...thanks a lot, Leon."

"Sorry, Lewis. And I'm sorry for being a smart-ass to you, Mom. Won't happen again."

"Good. And toss me one of those Tijuana bibles, too...seeing Blondie getting plowed by Mr Dithers always brightens my day."

Leon and Lewis sighed, handed their father the dog-eared 8-pager, and went back to eating their donuts and staring out the tinted, bulletproof windows. Malory, in the passenger seat next to Ray, smirked at Sterling over her shoulder, impressed with how he managed to reason with and discipline his children, albeit in a very...Sterling-esque way.

Archer put the dirty comic book in his coat pocket, dumped the contents of a couple of Old Buncomb miniatures into his cup of coffee, and put his arm around Lana's shoulder. Leon poked Lewis in the rib to catch his attention, and pointed to their parents' abnormally affectionate mannerisms, hopeful that their father would-

* * *

"-just pop the damn question to her already! You're not getting any younger! Or, at least any older, if I can just get that anti-aging compound to work on humans...urgh, come on, Krieger, FOCUS..."

Dr Krieger was talking to himself as he stared at his reflection, struggling to decide whether or not to ask Pam to marry him soon.

He had finally convinced himself to get rid of the projection unit for his virtual bride the night before, and had been mulling over the pros and cons of asking Pam to marry him ever since.

"Hey, Clone Stud, you disarm the bombs out there yet? I really need ya to wrap it up out there so you can start figuring out why our computers and phones and shit in here are messed up too."

Krieger jumped a little when he heard Pam's voice over his headset; he was suction-cupped several stories high on the side of ISIS headquarters, with one of the 60 bombs rigged throughout the building protruding from a vent in front of him.

He unmuted his headset's microphone, and looked the bomb over a moment.

"Nnnnno, not quite yet I'm afraid, dear. I'll keep at it though, 'kay?"

Krieger muted his mic again, and struggled to remember the code to disarm the bombs; he knew that he had to enter the correct code on the first attempt or it would trigger all of the other bombs, and there was no other way to safely disarm or remove the explosives.

A bead of sweat ran into his eyes as he stared into the tiny, green LCD screen atop the bomb. A faint image of the number 5 appeared briefly on the screen, and disappeared just as quickly.

Krieger's stomach sank into his shoes, just then remembering how he had set the devices: the code for disarming the bombs was EVERY LINE OF SOFTWARE code he had used to program his virtual girlfriend, in sequence. The LCD screen with the keypad on top of every explosive was a decoy, each containing a USB port under the "5" button to plug in the hologram's projection unit...the very same, one-of-a-kind projection unit that not only served as a key component in the ISIS Synchronous Optical Networking system that ran all internet and telephone traffic, but was also now smashed, burned, buried, urinated and defected on, shot at 100 times, sodomized, burned again, and dumped in four different locations in the Hudson River.

Krieger groaned; he had really wanted to make Pam happy by disarming the bombs for her and getting the computers working again, but now he had to break the bad news to her that he couldn't fix either of those problems for her, which, in his mind, wasn't going to help make him seem like good husband material...

...with a disappointed sigh, he plodded up the side of ISIS and climbed onto the roof, reluctant to go back into the office just yet. Although it was right behind him in plain sight, he was oblivious to the giant image of Archer, Lana, Leon, and Lewis that read "WANTED BY ODIN, DEAD OR ALIVE" flashing on the giant screen on the front of One Times Square, only a few blocks away from ISIS HQ.

He was too busy trying to find out the best way to explain to Pam why he couldn't fix her problems without sounding like an idiot. He kept drawing a blank as he smacked his palm against his forehead, frustrated.

* * *

Orin (who had finally gotten a shower, shaved, and wore a new suit) stood behind the podium near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, overlooking the crowd of news reporters, journalists, and cameras.

After Interpol failed to capture the Archer twins or their parents, Orin felt as if he had no choice left but to call a news conference to announce his team up with-

"-the head of ODIN, Cyril Figgis!"

Cyril had joined ISIS's rival agency ten years ago after Trinette deserted him in Moscow. When Francois brought him to Paris after their modest wedding, Cyril was decided to give a life of espionage another try. Surprisingly, without the hindrance of Archer's constant teasing or Malory's poor management, Cyril had shot through the ranks with ease until he became ODIN's second in command. He had solemnly taken over as the agency head after the death of Len Trexler a week ago. Cyril and Orin were close friends at ODIN until ISIS offered Orin dual agency status with MI6 if he quit ODIN and signed a ten year contract with them, an offer Orin found too difficult to refuse.

Now, as they addressed the crowd of journalists before them, the two friends stood beside each other, eager to begin the first steps of their ingenius plan.

"Well, folks, as head of ODIN, I sure hope you all understand why I can't really disclose to the public the _exact _details of our plan to stop this highly dangerous terrorist group, but I can assure you all, we will get the job done, and stop this menace to humanity!"

Cyril shook Orin's hand as the crowd applauded. Both men had a vendetta against a common enemy: The Archers, and, with the resources and manpower of two entire high-ranking intelligence agencies, unlimited government funding, public support of their cause, and complete diplomatic immunity for any of their actions, they were confident that was nothing in the world that could stop them from finally bringing down the Archer family, once and for all.


	8. Gideon's War

Note: This is a FRIGGIN' HUGE chapter, so please give yourself at least 20 minutes to get through this beast. I promise though, it should be worth it (I hope...the lack of reviews in contrast to my efforts are making me nervous!). Please read and **review**, folks...

* * *

Chapter Eight: Gideon's War

Although the drive to Torryburn, Scotland, was only about 3 hours from Liverpool on highway, the alternate route the family of fugitives had to use through the backroads of the UK added more than double the usual driving time; it was dark outside by the time Ray had gotten them to Northumberland, on the England-Scotland border.

As the Archer family slept in their seats, the Range Rover drove along the quiet rural road that would take them across the River Tweed. Ray yawned loudly, and took another sip of his now-cold thermos of coffee from their last rest stop. He had gotten very little sleep in the past 48 hours due to all of the time spent behind the wheel, but he felt compelled to push onward.

Ray rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes, and looked at the sleeping family in the rearview mirror. Archer and Lana snored softly as they rested their heads on each other, their hands intertwined over their firearms. Leon and Lewis (who had finally had a chance to wash up in a gas station restroom a few hours ago and wore two of Ray's clean white undershirts, which looked huge on them) were curled up next to each other underneath Archer's wool coat on the third row seats.

Even Malory had nodded off next to Ray in the front passenger seat, her high energy level finally beginning to wane a little in her twilight years. Even though they were a bunch of egotistical, deadly, possibly homophobic, alcoholic fugitives who were armed to the teeth, the closeness he had seen of the Archer family warmed Ray's heart, and assured him that he was doing the right thing by helping them.

Ray drove across Union Bridge, into Scotland, and continued following the directions on the dashboard's GPS screen, closing the gap between them and the family estate of Sterling's father on the outskirts of the tiny town of Torryburn, in Fife.

As he thought about stopping for more coffee in a small village up ahead, Ray had no clue that there was an entire fleet of black ODIN Dingo Mk1 scout cars, Humvees, and a small armada of MI6's RAF Merlin helicopters following the Range Rover miles behind them.

* * *

Cyril Figgis sat at his desk in Paris, calmly sipping his Glengoolie Black and flipping through his photo album.

He leafed through the pages, reliving the memories on each page: a couple pictures of him and Frambois on their wedding day, the first small apartment they had when she brought him back to Paris after she completed her culinary internship in Moscow, pictures of him and Orin on their last fishing trip, and, of course, an entire page dedicated to his beloved French bulldog, Horace.

Cyril bit his lip before turning to the section of the album where he kept the precious few pictures he had of his only child, Seamus. He had been searching for his estranged son for over a decade now, and, even with access to all of ODIN's signals intelligence equipment at his disposal, Seamus Magoon Figgis appeared to have effectively dropped from the very fabric of the material plane of existence.

Not a day passed by where Cyril didn't think of his son, and had still held out hope that he would reunite with Seamus again one day.

Cyril yawned, and closed the leather-bound album. The new head of ODIN had not been sleeping very well since he had taken over the agency after the sudden, unexpected death of Len Trexler the week before (Len died when he jumped out of the agency's limousine after seeing a rabbit on the side of the freeway, and was run over by several cargo trucks).

Between taking over the responsibilities of his new job and using his newly-acquired clout to hunt down the Archer family, he had slept on his couch in his office more nights recently than he had slept at home, much to Fraboise's annoyance. He fully planned on trying to make it home that night, but he had a sinking feeling that that wouldn't be the case.

Cyril chuckled to himself a little at the irony when he heard his desk phone ring just as he reached for the doorknob to leave the office for the night.

"Maybe I have ESP...", he thought to himself jokingly as he answered the phone.

A strange, metallic voice buzzed over the receiver.

"The tower of Peniel will fall if you continue on your current path, Cyril Figgis of ODIN. You will not be warned a second time: call off your war on the Archer family, they are not your enemy. WE are."

The ominous message ended suddenly, leaving Cyril feeling uneasy.

He cringed at the shooting pain in his artificial knee, reminding him of the deal he had made with Archer years before: in exchange of his life, Cyril had vowed to leave Archer's family alone.

The biggest reason Cyril had agreed to help Orin in hunting down the Archer family was honestly just to help out his friend. Although he hated the Archers with every atom in his body, and had done many less-than-honorable things in his lifetime, Cyril had enough scruples to at least uphold his word, or, at least he thought he did.

It amazed him how effective a small amount of peer pressure was in making him go outside of his comfort zone and question his morals.

Cyril pulled out the cell phone in his raincoat pocket that served as a direct line to his agent in command who could stop _Operation: Zebah_ instantly. He gazed at the phone, weighing his decision carefully.

After a few minutes, Cyril pocketed the phone, and walked out into the halls of ODIN.

* * *

Seamus turned away from his monitor, turned off the voice modulator, and hung up the phone, devastated by the response he had received from his biological father moments before.

He had hoped, even prayed that Cyril would have proven himself to be a better man, but it was clear to Seamus that he could not trusted to call off the rapidly impending attack on the small black Range Rover in Scotland that carried his new family within.

The young man swallowed to recompose himself, and dialed the number for his contact to execute his orders.

The phone rang only once, before his contact answered, her blurry face appearing on his screen.

Emily, the redhead from Liverpool, looked into the webcam and waited Seamus's command.

Seamus stubbornly wiped his nose, and solemnly nodded.

Emily's dark green eyes lowered, understanding his sadness, and turned around to face the gigantic army of people behind her in the old canning factory.

Emily stood with her back towards the webcam, and, with a single gesture, the mass of soldiers fell into line, with some boarding the stolen buses and lorries, others getting on their their mopeds and speeding away. The army of hundreds of orphaned, delinquent, or simply bored adolescents and young adults had learned of General Emily and Lieutenant Molly's recent encounter with the fugitive Archer family, and had been preparing a rescue plan to stop the corrupt, violent manhunt of four innocent people.

The Army of Izzy, or the Izzites, as they called themselves, made up for their lack of training with organization and sheer force in numbers, and took on many causes in and around the United Kingdom, but the battle against ODIN and MI6 would be their greatest challenge to date.

Emily looked back to the webcam one last time, and closed the laptop when she saw that Seamus was no longer on the screen.

She picked up the radio from her cinderblock desk, and relayed their contract's command to the Izzites "special agent" waiting in Cyril's home to follow through with their orders.

* * *

Ray parked the SUV in front of the gates of the huge family estate, called _Descent_, and woke up Archer.

He stirred, and looked out at the massive property in the small, dreary valley. The only structures that could be seen was a large, dimly lit stone mansion, at the bottom of the hill, near a run-down old church.

Archer took a deep breath as Ray carefully drove the Range Rover down the winding hill towards the home, where he would finally meet his real father. He gently shook Lana awake, deciding to let his sons rest peacefully a few minutes longer.

Malory woke up when they went over a pothole, and was wide awake when she saw where they were. She grabbed her large purse, and set it in her lap.

Ray pulled up to a rare, immaculately-kept Aston Martin DB Mark III, and parked the SUV beside it.

Lana woke up Leon and Lewis, who were very excited to see the classic car, and, piled out of the Range Rover behind the rest of their family to look at it closer.

Malory led the way to the front door, with Archer close behind.

She knocked on the heavy, ancient wooden door, and stepped back to stand beside Sterling.

Malory patted his back soothingly, understanding his anxiety. She felt the same way when she discovered who her son's real father was.

Archer held his breath as the giant door slowly creaked open.

The silhouette stood in the doorway, and, just as he emerged into the light, Archer's eyes rolled back into his head as he fainted.

Ray and Lana caught his unconscious body before he could hit the frozen ground, and they dragged him inside, following after Malory, who had just walked around the corner behind the owner of _Descent_.

They dropped Archer's limp body onto the dusty hardwood floors when they finally saw who stood before them.

Leon and Lewis walked in, and didn't recognize the man leaning on a cane, standing beside Malory. Leon cocked an eyebrow and tugged on Lana's pant leg.

"Mom, who-"

Lana looked down to Leon, shushing him.

"I'll explain later. For now, you and your brother can go help your dad to the couch. I got a feeling he'll probably faint again when he sees this..."

The boys shrugged, hooked their father's arms over their shoulders, and dragged him towards the couch next to the strange man.

He smiled down at the twins and passed Lewis a note before he slowly eased himself down into the tarp-covered chair beside his unconscious son.

Malory crossed her arms at him and shook her head.

"He got the fainting from you, you know..."

The elderly man nodded with amusement as he studied Archer's face closely, pleasantly surprised to see that his son had grown up with many of his own features. Sterling's eyelids began fluttering, indicating he would be waking up soon.

"May I...may I have some time alone with him, Malory? There's so much to say, but with hardly any-"

He began coughing violently. He covered his mouth with his white handkerchief, and it pulled away bright red. Malory frowned, and put her hand on his thin shoulder, sad to see that his illness had progressed so much.

She nodded, and ushered Lana, Ray, and the twins into the hallway.

Lana looked behind them, and leaned against the intricately-carved handrail leading to the upstairs of the home, as Lewis showed Leon the note their grandfather had handed to him.

"Malory...how long have you known that Archer's real father was-"

"David Eric Cunningham, former CIA agent, the rightful heir to the Glengoolie Distilleries fortune, and the top of Interpol's most wanted list for the past 30 years for the unauthorized assassination of Werner Heyde, the Nazi psychiatrist responsible for the Third Reich's euthanasia program? Not long, dear, maybe a year or so. I always had a hunch it was David, I just desperately wanted to believe it wasn't..."

Lana and Ray nodded, agreeing with Malory.

A moment of realization kicking in, Ray brought up a good point.

"Dukes, do y'all think it's safe here for all of us to be here in one place with him? We already got a whole shit load of ODIN and MI6 jerks coming after us, wouldn't we be putting David at risk just by being here?"

Malory nodded her head sadly, and her gaze dropped.

"Yes, but he wanted us here _because_ of this. He's as good as dead already, Ray, considering how advanced David's lung cancer is. When we last spoke on the phone a month ago, he said he only had a few weeks left to live. When he saw the news reports about ODIN hunting down Sterling, he wanted all of us to come here to _Descent, _while we were all still wanted. He...plans on allowing them to take him out, instead of living in agony and waiting for the inevitable. David wanted to make sure he had a chance to be with Sterling before he died, and sign over his multi-million dollar fortune and the ownership rights of Glengoolie Distilleries to his only living relative..."

They looked to the parlor room, where they could see Sterling sitting upright on the couch, talking to his sickly father.

David coughed into his bloodied handkerchief, after explaining his situation and handing Sterling all of the documents that would make him and his family unbelievably wealthy for the rest of their lives.

"So you _want_ ODIN to...wait, so how much time do you have left, from the cancer, I mean? W-we could fight them off, at least try to save you...there's so much I want to know about you, like how co-"

David smiled, and held up a trembling hand.

"Your mother will tell you anything and everything you want to know about me, Sterling. I've already made up my mind about this long ago, there's no turning back for me now. Let's just focus on the present for now, son. Trust me, I wish saving me was a realistic option but...well, cancer can be a bitch, tends to take a shit on a lot of your plans, you know? Plus being hunted down for killing a murderous Nazi asshole just because I didn't fill out the right paperwork before I pulled the trigger doesn't help..."

Archer chuckled softly, and put his hand gently around David's frail frame.

"Yeah, cancer and bureaucratic miscommunication definitely does that...Father?"

David shook his head with a smile as he put his hand over the hand Archer had over his shoulder.

"Please, Sterling, call me Dad."

Archer nodded as he helped David to his feet.

They walked to the nearby liquor cabinet together, and, pulling out an extremely rare bottle of 50 year old single malt Glengoolie Gold, Archer poured David his final drink as he tasted the luxurious liquor directly from it's bottle.

The sound of ODIN helicopters in the distance caught them by surprise, their bittersweet moment interrupted all too soon.

"Well, Sterling, that's my cue to exit. I'm...I'm sorry I couldn't have known you better, but I'm glad I could see you one last time...I love you, son"

Archer hugged him tightly, and wiped away the tears blurring his vision as he watched his father finish his scotch, put his cane on top of the bar, and walk towards the front door, where the swarm of ODIN and MI6 agents surrounding the old mansion waited.

Malory, Lana, Ray, and the twins were at the door of an ancient priest hole in the wall. The note David had given Lewis was directions to open the hidden access panel next to the large fireplace; he also drew a map, showing where the tunnel would take them in the nearby moors, near the church that was built on the property centuries ago.

David put his hand on the giant door, and turned around with a calm smile to look at Sterling one last time.

"See you later, alligator."

David pushed open the front door, and felt nothing but peace as the hail of bullets pierced through his body, ending his excruciating pain forever.

Sterling shut the access panel to the priest hole door, and ran down the narrow tunnel after his fleeing family. He picked up the munitions bag Lana had left for him near the entrance, and ran ahead of the group as he slung the RPG-7 over his shoulder, carrying the bag over his other.

"Lana, take up the rear with Mother and the kids and watch our six...Ray and I'll stay up front in case those ODIN dicks are waiting for us up there..."

Lana did as she was asked, and fell back with Leon, Lewis, and Malory.

Malory was falling behind, and was having a difficult time keeping up.

Lana noticed Malory's difficulty keeping pace with everyone.

"Is there something wrong, Malory?"

"Oh _no_, dear, I'm absolutely _peachy_. I'm nearly 80 years old, running for my life wearing 3-inch Pradas through a weird tunnel as I'm being hunted down by an agency that's the espionage world's equivalent of the village whore...it's called age, Lana, so just shut up and run!"

Lana rolled her eyes, and kept pace behind Malory and the twins.

The explosions from above shook the ancient stone tunnel violently, causing rubble to rain down.

As they neared the end of the tunnel, Leon's phone started ringing. It was 'Big Brother'.

He answered the phone as Archer and Ray struggled to push open the heavy doors, and a huge smile across his face appearing as he heard Seamus's news.

"Dad! Guys! There's help outside! Come on, open the door, there's an entire army out there to help us!"

Archer, gave his son a perplexed look as him and Ray finally pushed open the buried wooden doors, and, popping his head outside, was greeted unexpectedly by a familiar face.

"Hey Archers, need a hand with these ODIN fuckwads?"

Molly, wearing an old WWII sergeant helmet over her now-neon green hair, looked down at the shocked group below as she stood on top of a heavily-modified, graffiti-covered Mk1 Crusader cruiser tank. The Izzite army was adequately holding back the ODIN and MI6 forces, keeping the onslaught safely away from the run-down old church near where they stood.

Archer, too frazzled to question why the hell a 13-year old punk girl was doing piloting a WWII relic around, simply took the help and picked up Leon, pushing him up on the tank.

"Uh, yeah, sure, Rebecca Buck, I think we'll take you up on that, as long as Booga doesn't take up too much room in that tin can..."

Molly gave him a confused look as he pushed Lewis up next to her.

Archer's eyes went huge in disbelief.

"Wha- oh c'mon, Tank Girl? Jamie Hewlett? _Seriously_? Jesus, kid, read an indie comic book!"

She rolled her eyes, still not getting the reference as Archer stepped back from the tank; Molly led the twins up to the open hatch, and they clambered into the safety of the impossibly tiny space inside, regrettably unable to take anyone else on board.

Waving at Archer, Lana, Malory, and Ray, she ducked inside, closing the hatch above her. As the four adults ran toward the old church ruins close by, an ODIN Merlin appeared and opened fire at them. Molly aimed the tank's cannon (outfitted with a Strela-2 missle launcher) at the offending aircraft, and fired a single warhead, instantly destroying the chopper in a giant fireball. Molly sounded the tank's modified siren, the chorus to _La Cucaracha,_ as she drove the tank away from the ensuing battle, taking the twins away to safety.

Archer, Lana, Malory, and Ray ran into the centuries-old church, and divided up the remainder of their munitions stash from the two duffle bags, ready to hold their position in the church against the impossibly large front of ODIN and MI6 agents that were cutting through the Izzites waning numbers, inching closer by the minute.

Lana stopped Archer as they prepared to get in position around the windows of the stone structure.

"Archer, if we somehow make it out of here alive, I...I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

Sterling lowered his missle launcher, shocked at the sudden proposal.

"Of...of course I will, Lana...but what about that prick, Or-"

He was abruptly cut off as a black Humvee crashed through the wall of the church, narrowly missing all four of them.

The door of the vehicle slammed open, as Orin hopped out, a twisted smile across his face. He turned, and grabbed Malory, jabbing his pistol into her temple as she yelped in pain.

Archer aimed his Walther at Orin, ready to paint the walls with his brains.

Orin waggled a finger at him, and pressed the pistol tighter against Malory's head.

"No no, Archer, I believe you are misreading what is happening here. You see, I have, what is often referred to as, 'the upper hand', yes? I don't want anything in this world but to see you suffer, and what better way to do that than to murder your mother before your very eyes?"

Lana drew her TEC-9 and fired at Orin, but missed. Orin quickly moved the barrel of his Browning semi-auto, aimed at Lana and shot her in her chest, knocking her down instantly as he re-aimed the pistol back at Malory.

Orin looked back at Archer, his maniacal laughter ringing through the musty air of the old church.

"That, actually. Hmm, I answered my own question...that seemed to have fucked you up pretty damn well!"

Archer, horrified, screamed and dropped to his knees, taking Lana's head into his hands.

Ray, who was behind Orin, fired a single round through the back of the crazed British man's head. As Orin Steel's lifeless body fell to the cold stone of the church floor, Malory ran to Ray's side, terrified but unharmed.

They looked on as Archer cried into Lana's bleeding chest, feeling helpless.

Archer picked up his head when he heard Lana quietly gasping for air. He looked at her closely, and his eyes brightened when he realized that she was still alive, but her breathing was severely labored and making a soft gurgling noise between inhalations. Archer lifted up the bottom of her shirt, and saw that she had been shot through her right lower lung, which was quickly filling up with blood.

Knowing there was only mere seconds to save her, Archer focused through his panic and searched through his pockets, and found one of the plastic mini bottles of Glengoolie Black he had confiscated from Leon and Lewis. He drank the bottle's contents and quickly cut an X on the bottom of the bottle with his switchblade. He bent up one of the four flaps he created, and shoved the open neck deep into Lana's bubbling gunshot wound.

The blood that was building up in her lung drained out of the makeshift flutter valve, and Lana took several deep breaths, stable for the time being.

Archer leaned down and kissed Lana's forehead, her breathing still labored, but stable enough for her to remain alive.

"See Lana? It's all about the timing."

He smiled as he saw her hand slowly flip him off as a weak smile crept across her lips.

Ray and Malory ran over to Archer and helped the semi-conscious Lana stand, and the four of them piled into the still-running black Humvee. Archer stomped on Orin's lifeless body as he into the vehicle with Lana slung over his shoulder.

Ray resumed his role as driver, and he backed the armored truck out of the church, and into the moors.

The swarm of ODIN and MI6 agents stopped their activity suddenly, and they began leaving in the opposite direction, much to the confusion of the escaping fugitives.

As the Humvee followed the tank tracks pressed into the frozen ground leading to the safe zone where Molly had taken Leon and Lewis, all intelligence agencies the world over received orders of the immediate cease and desist on all action against the Archer family, ending _Operation: Zebah_, from the desk of Cyril Figgis.

* * *

Cyril, covered in blood, wept as he sent the cease and desist order over the telex in his home office.

He looked up and cried, staring at the "special agent" of the Izzites as she held the severed head of Horace, his French bulldog, by the ears.

Cheryl Tunt, the founder of the Army of Izzy, dropped the bloody dog's head on Cyril's desk with a wet plop, making him jump back and cry even louder.

"Finally! Geez, ow, how long does it take to type out a stupid paragraph?"

Cheryl had formed the Army of Izzy by accident about 5 years ago after getting lost during her vacation. Cheryl had eaten a huge bag of bad LSD gummy bears in her private suite in the Liverpool Tuntmore Hotel. At the peak of her trip, she had jumped from the balcony and into a dumpster below, in her attempt to fly away from the hallucinations of tiny ostriches crawling out of the carpet.

After a group of homeless kids found her talking to herself in the dumpster a few hours later, Cheryl, still completely out of her mind on LSD, had introduced herself to them as the Great and Powerful Empress Izzy, and claimed she had been sent to Earth to amass a great army to rise up against the stupid government and take down people that were "just plain gross". With not much else to do, the bored kids decided to follow Cheryl's commands, no matter how insane, and the rest happened by accident.

Cyril buried his face into his hands, devastated about Horace.

"You should've listened to your weird kid, dipshit! That Seamus dude friggin' _loves _dogs, he was devestated about having to have me kill your dumb gross pet to make you leave the Archers alone, which was _incredibly_ shitty of you and that Orin prick to do in the first place. Well, gotta go, you're kinda being a buzzkill. Later, idiot!"

As she left Cyril's house, Cheryl sneered at Framboise, who she had left tied up in the kitchen, with the dog's body baking in the oven next to her.

As Cyril bawled his eyes over Horace, he lifted his head a moment later, just then realizing what Cheryl had said.

"Wait...that...that phone call, it was-"

* * *

"-Seamus, hey, you in here?"

Pam unlocked the door to Archer's penthouse, and let herself in.

With no other way to contact Seamus due to the ISIS telephone and internet network still being down, and now discovering that the land line to Archer's place was out too, Pam had no other option but to go speak with Seamus in person.

The young defector, who had been crying over ordering the execution of Horace, sniffled a little as he walked into the lounge area where Pam was standing. Judging from her haggard appearance, the head of ISIS was extremely stressed.

"Ms Poovey? Is everything well?"

Pam shook her head, dropped to her knees, and clasped her hands together.

"I know we still haven't cleared you from the KGB or whoever the hell you actually worked for, but you GOTTA come with me over to ISIS! There's a whole shit load of bombs all over the place, my stupid scientist boyfriend can't get ANY of the friggin' computers or phones to work, and on my way over here, I JUST NOW figured out that Archer, Lana, and their kids have been wanted by ODIN and MI6 for almost _two_ _goddamned_ _weeks_! Oh shit...they're probably already dead! Christ, Malory's gonna blow up ISIS for sure..."

Pam started rocking back and forth as she curled up into the fetal position on the floor, her panic attack now in full effect.

Seamus rolled his eyes, stepped around Pam's hyperventilating body, and grabbed his suit jacket from the coat rack by the door.

"Since I have already filed my death certificate with the KGB as of...5 minutes ago, I think it'd be safe for me to leave house now. Aside from this, I may be able to ease some more of your worries, Ms Poovey. I will tell you on our way to ISIS, da?"

Seamus held out his hand, and helped Pam stand up. She just nodded slowly and walked with Seamus out of the penthouse, relief already washing over her, looking forward to having her spy agency back to normal, and relief of finally leaving the apartment washing over Seamus as he locked the double doors of his family's home.

As they walked the few blocks back to ISIS, neither one noticed Dr Krieger leaving a pawn shop, or the small velvet ringbox he put in his labcoat pocket, beside a tiny irradiated piglet. He whistled happily as he made his way back to the office, ready to surprise Pam.


	9. All Tomorrow's Parties

Chapter Nine: All Tomorrow's Parties

* * *

A Month and a Half Later

* * *

"Let ME blow out the candles this year, Lewis! You did it for the past three years!"

"Blow ME, douchebag!"

The Archer twins fell to the floor, punching each other, shortly after Leon shoved Lewis's face out of the way and blew out all of the candles atop their 11th birthday cake.

Archer pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head as they fought before speaking.

"HEY! Knock it off, guys! No one is blowing ANYTHING now, all right? Jesus, I buy you two a $600, multi-layered butter rum and Kahlua cream cake for your birthday, and you're getting all worked up over 11 stupid _candles_. Those things can't cost more than, like, a couple bucks each..."

He separated the boys by picking up each one by the backs of their matching suits, and plopped them both back into their seats at the head of the dining table set up in the lounge area of their penthouse as they scowled at each other.

Many ISIS employees were in attendance to the boys' birthday party, as well as several of the twins' classmates from prep school, and, of course, their family.

Seamus, who had started working part-time at ISIS alongside Dr Krieger for nearly a month, helped Woodhouse carry another large gift for the boys and set it next to the others in the huge pile of presents. Seamus wiped the sweat from his brow on the back of his hand, grabbed his glass of vodka on the rocks from the nearby dining table, and took a long drink as he stared at the gift table.

"That is...wow, that is a LOT of gift just for birthday..."

Archer smirked, stood next to his adoptive son, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"That, son, is just a medium-sized haul for an Archer. If you think _this_ is a lot, just wait til Christmas in a couple weeks, it'll blow your mind!"

Seamus smiled at his father, and nodded as he took another sip of vodka, looking forward to his first Christmas as a member of the Archer family.

Seamus saw Woodhouse struggling to bend down to pick up a tipped over glass, and he excused himself to go help the elderly valet.

Archer rolled his eyes, still astounded at Seamus's friendship with Woodhouse, and walked over to Malory, who was sitting beside the fireplace, enjoying a Tom Collins.

"So, Mother, crazy month, huh?"

She nodded and took a sip of her highball, agreeing.

"Yes, dear, it certainly has been. At least the twins seem to be a little better with Lana still in the hospital..."

"Yeah, but they've been fighting with each other a lot more since I told them she nearly died and that Orin was dead. Lana's doctors said she'll make a full recovery and she'll be out by Christmas, but it still sucks that she couldn't make it to the kids' birthday tonight. Between that and coming home to a new older brother from Russia, I guess it was enough to screw up their routine, but they'll get used to all of the changes soon, I hope."

Malory nodded as she set her purse beside her. Archer finished his drink, and went over to the bar for a refill. Ray was behind the bar wearing a white tux, mixing drinks for the party.

"Geez, Ray, first you drove my family all over Europe like Hoke friggin' Colburn, now you're tending bar for us too? Either you're gunning for Woodhouse's job, which, honestly, I can't imagine you doing _half_ of the shit we make him do without starting a complete bitch-fit, or you're really super gay for me, which, spoiler alert, I'M STRAIGHT."

Ray rolled his eyes as he refilled Archer's tumbler of scotch.

"Y'know..."

"Know _what_, Queer-k? How Ferengis are the capitalist pig-dogs of the universe?"

Ray looked at him, throughly lost.

Archer waited, and smacked his palm on his forehead.

"Like Quark? The bartender from Deep Space- oh, never mind..."

He took a large swig off of his tumbler and left to go out on the terrace to take a break from the festivities inside.

Archer looked out at the twinkling skyline of Manhattan as a dusting of snow started falling from the dark mauve sky, grateful to be back home. A few days ago, he had finally submitted the paperwork that his father, David, had given him, naming Archer the sole benefactor to his 80 million dollar inheritance, as well as the ownership rights of the main Glengoolie Distillery in Torryburn. This, combined with the Archer family's already-sizeable net worth, had made Sterling Malory Archer one of the wealthiest people in New York overnight.

He smiled and shook his head, still finding it hard to believe that he was officially a multimillionaire, a dream of his since childhood. He planned on using his fortune to buy a few American distilleries, a debt-free college education for all three of his sons at an Ivy league school of their choice, as well as...well, the thought of what a man like Sterling Archer could do with that amount of money made his head swim...he knew that if the 5-year old him knew how rich he'd become, he would've gotten a _huge_ erection.

He laughed to himself at the thought as he turned to go back to the party, but he noticed a conflict was breaking out inside between his mother and Pam.

Malory, infuriated, was roughly shoving Pam's chest, her face bright red in anger.

"You **TOLD KRIEGER**?! I don't care if it's after-the-fact now, you gigantic moron, I specifically told you _not_ to say anything to ANYONE! You knew the consequences of this..."

Malory pulled the detonator out of her ever-present purse, and put her thumb over the bright red button as she stared Pam right in the eyes.

"NO NO NO! Krieger is still in his lab! You'll kill him if you set the bombs off!"

Pam grabbed Malory's wrists, and the two women fought and tumbled until they eventually made it outside onto the terrace, rolling at Archer's feet.

Archer cocked his head to the side as they went past and asked, "What bombs?"

Malory finally broke away from Pam's grasp, and pushed the button on the detonator.

The party goers looked to the east where ISIS headquarters was located, expecting a deafening blast, but only saw-

"Fireworks? What the hell..."

Pam looked up into the snowy night sky, and couldn't believe what she saw.

Against the large smoke screen created by the wall of fireworks, the message, '**MARRY ME, PAM**!' was spelled out in green lasers, followed by '**THIS IS FROM DR KRIEGER, BTW**'. In the distance, "Closer To The Heart" by Rush played loudly over a wall of speakers.

Pam, who was grinning ear to ear and speechless, covered her mouth with her hands and started bouncing up and down. She leaned over the ledge of the terrace, and yelled out her answer in the direction of ISIS.

"YES, KRIEGER! I'LL MARRY THE HELL OUT OF YOU, YOU CRAZY BASTARD!"

Just then, another message appeared on the dissipating smoke screen floating above Times Square, reading '**KICK ASS, ILY! BRT, LOL**'.

The group of party goers clapped and congratulated Pam. Seamus handed his boss a beer mug full of Green Russian, and patted her on the back, a coy look on his face as she accepted the giant cocktail.

"Ooh, I bet you helped Krieger set that up, didn't you, ya lil' piroshki? Ha ha, I knew you guys were up to something!"

Seamus blushed and shrugged, and clinked his tumbler of vodka with her beer mug.

"Da, well, I may be ex-KGB scum, but I still have heart, soon-to-be-Mrs Dr Krieger!"

Malory was still sitting on the Pennsylvanian blue stone floor of the terrace, pushing the detonator's button repeatedly, trying desperately to set off the bombs.

"C'mon, c'moooonnnn...oh, DAMMIT, fine. Surrounded by idiots..."

Archer laughed and helped his mother stand up. As they led the chattering and shivering group of guests back inside, Archer told Woodhouse to go down to the liquor store to buy several bottles of champagne to celebrate Pam's engagement.

Seamus offered to accompany Woodhouse to the store, and, after they left, the party continued at the penthouse, with plenty of things to celebrate.

Archer smiled out at the happy mixed crowd of family, friends, and coworkers. He took another drink, and admired the titanium, black diamond and sapphire engagement band Lana had given him on his finger. He usually hated wearing any jewelry, but he proudly wore the tastefully-designed custom ring. He decided to call Lana's hospital room to share the excitement with his fiancée.

He dialed the number on his recently-repaired land line phone, and smiled widely when he heard her voice.

"Hey there, Lorena Marquez, how's your new gills?"

Lana rolled her eyes as she held the hospital phone to her ear. She adjusted the stint protruding from between her ribs, near her nearly-healed gunshot wound.

"I'm doing fine, honey. How're the boys? Are they still acting up?"

Archer looked over and saw Leon and Lewis opening their gifts, and both boys were thankfully getting along together.

"Yeah, they sorta fought over the candles again this year, but they didn't mess up the cake like they did for their 9th birthday...Christ, remember that, Lana? At the aquarium?"

Lana laughed at the memory of the birthday party a few years ago, at the NYC Aquarium, when the twins started a food fight that resulted in them being banned for life after a diabetic seal ate too much of the cake after it landed in it's enclosure and nearly died of insulin shock.

"Ha, yeah...Carvel would've had a field day if the boys nearly killed a whale...poor Fudgie! Or even worse, Cookie Puss!"

Archer and Lana laughed together over the phone, the memory still fresh in their minds.

"Ah, man...hey Lana, speaking of whales, guess who else just got engaged?"

Lana set down her plastic cup of orange juice on her dinner tray, her eyes wide in disbelief.

"No way, Pam is getting married too? That's insane!"

Archer finished his drink and smiled when he saw Leon open a box containing a New York Lizards jersey signed by Grant Catalino, his favorite professional lacrosse attackman.

"Right? It was Krieger who popped the question just a few minutes ago, so it was definitely insane...I'm sure they'll tell you all about it whenever the stupid doctors finally cut you loose and you come home. I...I miss you, Lana."

Lana pushed away her empty dinner tray, and smiled warmly into the phone receiver.

"I miss you too, Archer. As long as my lung doesn't get reinfected, Dr Tamber said I should be able to go home in about a week."

Archer nodded as he pulled out his cell phone and checked the calendar.

"That's awesome, and just in time for Christmas too...heh, you know, Lana, with as rich as I am now, I could almost literally buy you anything in the world for Christmas. What would you like? Want me to buy that whole idiot aquarium? I've already bought a shitload of gifts for the kids, so they're covered..."

Lana bit her lip and smiled, figuring it was as good time as any to break the good news to Archer.

"How about...a baby crib?"

Archer's jaw hung open.

"A cri- holy shit, _really_? Lana, that's...oh my god, that's incredible!"

Archer removed the phone from his ear and ecstatically shouted out to the crowd.

"HEY EVERYONE! THE ARCHER SEED HAS STRUCK AGAIN! LANA'S KNOCKED UP! WOO!"

Everyone at the party cheered at the announcement; Leon and Lewis looked at each other, surprised. They continued opening their gifts, but Leon's mood was definitely different after hearing the news.

Sterling laughed, and put the phone back to his ear.

"I can't...I mean, wow! That's great! How far along are you? Do they know if it's a boy or a girl yet?"

Lana smiled, and looked down at her currently-flat belly, knowing it wouldn't be flat for too much longer.

"7 weeks, which was the night we...reunited. I hadn't slept with Orin for like a month before then, so it's definitely yours, Archer. They don't know the gender yet, but we should be able to know soon."

Lana yawned, her energy level low from her early pregnancy and her recovery from her wounds.

Archer chuckled, and switched ears on the phone, his tinnitus beginning to bother him in one ear.

"Oh man, that's great, Lana...well hey, it sounds like Badass #4 is telling you to go to bed, that's probably a good idea, you need all the rest you can get. I'll bring the kids by to see you tomorrow, okay? I love you, Lana."

She yawned happily, and pulled the covers of the hospital bed up to her chin.

"Okay, Archer. I love you too...goodnight."

Archer hung up and went back to the party. He sat on the floor between Leon and Lewis, smiling widely.

"So how's _that_ for a birthday gift, guys? A new little brother or, if our lucky streak finally breaks, sister?"

Lewis put down his new airsoft rifle, and looked up at his father with a smirk.

"Eh, I would've rather have gotten a puppy instead, but I guess another kid's pretty cool...congrats, Dad!"

Leon furrowed his brow, obviously not as happy about the new baby.

"Maybe we could buy Mom a coupon for an abortion this Christmas...it's getting way too crowded around here as is without another little bastard taking up more of our space."

Archer, shocked at his son's remark, clapped a hand over his mouth and carried him away to the kitchen before setting him down on his feet to look him directly in the eyes as he held him by the shoulders firmly.

"Leon...what the fuck was _that_?"

Leon's aquamarine eyes began watering, and he wiped them stubbornly with his sleeve.

"Dad, I don't _want_ another brother or sister! I mean, Seamus is cool, and he's nice to us and he helped Lewis and me in the UK, but I don't want him _living_ here! It just feels...I feel-"

"-too crowded? Yeah, hmm, this place is starting to make me feel claustrophobic too. Oh shit, you probably got traumatized of enclosed spaces after being locked up in that trunk for so long...goddamned Orin..."

Archer sighed and stood up, patting Leon's back, the reason for his son's odd behavior apparent now. He reached over to the roll of paper towels on the countertop and handed a sheet to his crying son. Leaning his back against the counter, Archer rubbed his chin as he thought a few moments, as Leon settled down. Bartleby, the savannah cat, cautiously poked his head from around the corner, and happily walked into the kitchen to rub his head against Leon's leg.

"You know what, Leon, I think you're on to something. I think it's time we move out of here. The penthouse was awesome when it was just you two, me, and Woodhouse, but with Seamus here, now your Mom moving in soon, plus with a new kid on the way, I think we're due for an upgrade. What do you say?"

Leon sniffled, and looked up at his dad, a hopeful grin developing on his face.

"Really? That sounds perfect, Dad! Would we stay in New York?"

Archer reached down and picked up Bartleby, who was purring loudly.

"Yeah sure, if you want, but we're friggin' _multimillionaires_ now, Leon, we can live anywhere in the world! I know what you mean, though, Manhattan will always be home, but...well, where would _you_ like to live?"

Leon thought about it a minute, and shrugged his small shoulders.

"Sorry, Dad, but I really can't think of anywhere better for us than New York. But maybe we could live out in the country? Like out in Steuben County? We'd still be close to the city, but there'd be a lot more room to breathe, not so many dark corners and walls out there, you know?"

Archer smiled and nodded as he set Bartleby back down on the floor, as he crouched down to Leon's eye level once more.

"I know exactly what you mean. We'll have to run it by the guys and your Mom when we go visit her tomorrow for lunch, but I think the Archer family would do great out in the country. Plus we'd finally have enough room to get that heated indoor Olympic-sized pool filled with aquavit we've always talked about...great job, Leon, I'm proud of you."

Archer hugged Leon tightly, and they went back out to the party, where Dr Krieger and Pam were happily shooting the corks off the bottles of champagne Seamus and Woodhouse had brought minutes before into the laughing crowd.

The party continued long into the snowy night, as everything finally started to look up for everyone under the penthouse roof.


	10. Moving On

Chapter Ten: Moving On

"OW! Crap, son of a bitch! Who's bright idea was it to move out in friggin' JANUARY?"

"Yours, dumbass."

"Oh, right."

Lana shook her head at Archer down on the sidewalk as she handed a large box labeled "Sterling: Bedroom, DO NOT OPEN! (this means YOU, Seamus!)" to one of the movers, who were loading the large semi-truck with everything from Archer's now-empty, infamous penthouse. Archer picked himself up from the icy concrete, rubbing his sore backside gingerly.

"It's weird moving out, Lana...hard to believe I've lived in this place for almost 20 years. Raised two and at least some of one of my kids here..."

He smiled to himself when he thought of the legions of women and prostitutes he had banged there over the years as well, but thought it wise not to mention that particular bit of his nostalgia with his 3-month pregnant fiancée.

Lana chuckled at Archer's attachment to his former home, and put a hand around Sterling's waist.

"Yeah, I know it's hard, honey."

Archer looked down at the front of his pants with an amused grin, pleasantly surprised...those were REALLY good memories.

"It actually is, Lana...see?"

Lana looked down to where he was pointing, and rolled her eyes.

"Put that away, idiot, I didn't mean _you_ were hard...I'm gonna have to admit, though, there's a lot of memories attached to this place. It's still funny how Lewis took his first steps here, but Leon had his first steps at my place a few days later..."

Archer grinned, and drew his black wool scarf tighter, feeling a chilly draft as he watched the movers take his favorite chair up the ramp into the moving truck.

"Or how Leon said his first word, 'daddy', at my place but you heard it first because he called _you_ 'daddy', but Lewis's first word was at Mother's house, and her and I heard it first. Heh, who would've guessed that his first word was going to be-"

Lana smacked her forehead, remembering something.

"SHIT!"

Archer looked at her curiously.

"Uh, yeah, duh Lana, we both know the story. Lewis wouldn't stop saying 'shit' for like two weeks, remember? Drove Mother insane, it was great! Every time 'Grandma' showed up to visit, little 1 year old Lewis plodded out, smiling, cute as hell, and chanting, 'shit shit, oh shit' while he pointed right at Mother's face! Ha ha...oh man, good times."

"No, not that, Archer...I just remembered, there's still a shit load of stuff in Orin and I's old place that hasn't been packed yet! Crap, guess that means the kids' pet salamanders are probably dead..."

Archer stuck his tongue out in disgust.

"Ew, why the hell would you let them have salamanders in the first place? Those slimy things smell worse than Pam's gross, crusty, old dild-OH, hey, guys! Uh, all packed up, ready to go?"

Leon, Lewis, and Seamus walked up to their parents, carrying their suitcases.

"Yes, we are all finished packing our things. But what is all the talk about dildo, hmm? Did, ah, Mom here, have malfunction with hers or something? I am, as you know, _quite_ adept at electronics, dear mother, so if you let me take a look at-ow, ow, OW!"

Seamus's dirty rhetoric was cut short by Lana grabbing his ear with her gloved hand and twisting it upwards roughly, greatly amusing the twins and Archer.

"Shuddup, Joseph Mortimer Granville Junior. No, guys, I was talking about all the stuff still in my old apartment. Leon, Lewis, you remember your salamanders, Maverick and Goose?"

The twins' faces dropped, just then remembering their pets. Their lips began quivering, knowing what their mother was about to say.

"Well, after about four months alone without any heat, food or water, I'm really sorry to say, but there's a good chance that they're-"

Archer interjected quickly, and nudged his family towards his Dodge Charger in the car park below the building.

"-eager to see you guys again after such a long time! In fact, uh, let's go see them now, at their temporary home at the pet shop and pick them up before we head out to the new place out in Savona..."

As the three boys climbed into the back seat of the car and Archer put their suitcases in the trunk, Lana got into the passenger seat. When Archer got in and sat in the drivers seat, he couldn't help but notice her looking back at him with a befuddled look.

He leaned over and whispered into her ear, "For shit's sakes, Lana, these guys have been through enough death and other weird morbid shit for now, let's try to give them just a little bit of a break or else we might end up with three creepy militant goth kids...I'm sure as shit not raising _that_ circus, not with all the guns and knives and shit we own between us. That's the groundwork for Columbine 2.0 if I've ever heard of one".

Lana just sighed and shut her eyes, too worn out to deal with the multitude of things wrong that he had just said. Archer leaned back into the drivers seat, started the car, and pulled out into the street, heading towards the nearby pet store.

Seamus sat between Leon and Lewis, happy to be going on a nice family outing. He had settled in to the daily routine of having a big breakfast, walking to school, working at ISIS for a few hours, then getting a ride home from Dr Krieger, having dinner, doing his homework, followed by chatting with Woodhouse as he helped him with the nightly chores, then a quick Russian language lesson with Leon and Lewis, followed by a few precious, uninterrupted minutes of talking with Archer and/or Lana after the twins go to bed, then 7 quiet, peaceful hours of sleep before repeating the whole process again the next day. It grounded him to reality, and, with every day that passed by that adhered to this schedule, his traumatic past pushed itself further out of his mind, making Seamus feel more and more like a normal 16-year old kid.

The twins, however, seemed to thrive on general chaos and disarray, yet were so dependent on a few odd, consistent things. Seamus was positive that they'd completely derail in mere days if they were separated from said things. For instance, the innocuous act of Lana (who was carrying their unborn sibling and recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound) moving in with them for a couple weeks after her hospital stay aggravated Leon's claustrophobia to the point that Archer had to cancel all other plans to take Leon out for a 4-day backpacking trip up in the Catskills in the dead of winter to calm him down enough just to make grades in school to pass that semester.

On the other hand, Seamus had been locked away in a steel footlocker that has been tossed in a bathtub filled half-way with ice water when he was only six years old, and had an extra day tacked on every time he cried, whimpered, or made a sound beyond answering his commander, totaling, at the end of it, nearly a week locked inside that tiny footlocker...and Seamus felt much more comfortable in small spaces than Leon, even though Leon was trapped in a much larger, much less-confining car trunk, and for fewer days than him, and he even had his brother to keep him company! Such luxury! And he _always_ got perfect marks on his report card without needing a camping trip...so why would Leon need a vacation just to do the bare minimum of what was expected of him?

These contradictory things confused Seamus to no end, but he still accepted his strange little brothers lovingly, no matter how much they confused him.

"So, ah...are we going to see the der'mo out of some dried up dead salamander, or what, eh guys?"

The twins started crying loudly on either side of him, much to Seamus's great confusion and his adoptive parents' frustration.

Archer gently banged his forehead on the steering wheel as they sat at the red light, only a block away from the pet store.

"Goddammit, Seamus..."

Seamus frowned and patted the twins' backs, sorry for making his brothers upset, but all the more confused as to why they were upset at all...he had thought that seeing a couple of dried up little lizards would've been fun. He sighed, pulled out his flask full of vodka, and took a couple of stealthy sips as the tiny whirlwind of chaos unfolded around him, unsettling his comfortable routine.

Archer sped past the pet shop, and headed straight out of town west, towards their new, secluded, custom-built mansion on the outskirts of Savona, NY, four hours away from the heart of Manhattan.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin

* * *

"EDIE! YOU TRIFLIN' BITCH! Where'd you put my stupid...whatever, stomach-squeezer thingie?!"

Pam yelled out to her sister down the hallway of their father's farmhouse. She and Krieger were visiting Poovey Farms to introduce him to her family, and to announce their engagement when the rest of the Pooveys arrived the next day.

"DIDJA CHECK UP YER FAT ASS, SPAMELA?!"

Pam audibly growled in frustration at her sister's cruelty; she had hoped that a couple decades apart would've cultivated at least a shred of kindness in Edie, but, if anything, she had become meaner since Pam left Poovey Farms for college years ago.

"Yeah, well...maybe yer skinny ass needs a whoopin' so you remember who the hell is the big sister around here!"

"HA! I DON'T NEED ANYTHING BUT FUNCTIONAL EYES TO REMEMBER THAT, LARD-O-LAKES!"

Pam growled out loud again to Edie, went back into her old bedroom, and slammed the door shut.

Krieger, who had been sitting on the bed in his boxers the whole time, twiddled his thumbs nervously as he looked around Pam's old room.

Pam sat down next to him as she pulled her "3 Babou moon" t-shirt over her head, getting ready for bed.

"Why ya look so sketchy, Al? Dad seemed to liked you...shit, even Edie wouldn't stop eye-banging ya all throughout dinner, and trust me, that's the closest you'll ever get to a compliment from her. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll all be happy to hear about our engagement when everyone else arrives tomorrow, all right?"

Krieger looked at Pam with a strained smile, his face sweaty and flushed. Pam was genuinely worried now.

"Woah, what the shit is going on with your face? You look like you're either shitting, dying, or coming..."

Finally, the scientist released the deep breath he had been holding for the past several minutes.

"Pam I'm sterile and I can't give you children like other guys because apparently I really am a clone and so I'm shitty and terrible and awful and you might as well go marry someone else with functional seed and have a bunch of babies before it's too late and you wind up cold, alone, and dead, just like my non-existent sperm count that I just looked at a few minutes ago on that microscope!"

Pam glanced over to her old microscope set on the floor, which was covered in lukewarm semen.

"Ew...well, it's not the first time it's had that much splooge on there..."

She sighed and wrapped her arm over her fiancée's shoulders as he hyperventilated, holding him tightly.

"Oh, Krieger, relax, c'mon, shh. Listen, I don't think I've ever told this to anyone, but I don't _want_ kids. Ever! Babies are cool and all, but I sure as shit don't wanna have one of my own weighing me down, especially with all of **my** hobbies...plus kids are just way too much responsibility..."

Krieger sniffed and looked up to Pam, his bright green eyes hopeful.

"Really? So you don't care if I'm only half a man?"

He spread his legs open and scowled at his lap as he raised a small rubber mallet in his hand, threatening to smash his own genitals.

Pam grabbed Krieger's wrist gently and raised it above his head as she smiled coyly, pushing his back against the mattress as she straddled his lap.

"Al, you're _all_ man to me. The fact you're firing blanks means we can actually go bareback from on, so that's definitely a plus..."

Pam kissed him deeply, and he dropped the hammer behind the bed with a loud "thud" on the wooden floor as he returned his fiancée's affections.

As they made love, he was still surprised that the perfect woman for him was someone who he had worked with daily for years. She was more perfect for him than a line of code he had written to design a prefect woman in digital form...but, nothing beats analogue.

"HEY QUIT MOVING THE FURNITURE UP THERE! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP, KIDDO!"

Edie could be heard snickering loudly from down the hall at their father's remark over the loud squeaking of Pam's old bedframe.

Neither Pam or Krieger heard or cared; their happiness was far too distracting.

* * *

Somewhere Along I-80

* * *

Woodhouse sat in the large dog crate Archer and the twins had shoved him into when Seamus and Lana weren't looking, and sighed miserably, shaking his head at Bartleby sleeping soundly in the cage beside him in the back of the moving truck.

"They could've at least changed the newspaper in here for me like they did for you, you know..."

Bartleby lifted his head, yawned, and turned his back to Woodhouse.

"Oh."

The valet went back to hugging his bony knees to his chest, trying to stay warm in the flimsy crate; he would have to tell Seamus about it later when they all arrived at their new house.


	11. Feminine Touch

Chapter Eleven: Feminine Touches

* * *

11 Months Later

* * *

"Erica, baby, c'mon, don't cry, shh. Don't feel so self-conscious. You think you're the only girl I've woken up in bed with that's pissed herself and spilled her drink at the same time? I mean this is _me_ we're talking about. Shit, you should at least be thankful that you're cute, and not some drunk, fat, ugly chick..."

Archer, who had been awakened from his afternoon nap by a puddle of urine and baby formula forming in the center of the bed, held his crying three-month old daughter, Erica Malory Archer, against his shoulder, trying to comfort her, but failing miserably.

Sterling groaned in frustration and exhaustion as he got out of the soaked bed, and carried Erica from his and Lana's bedroom down the hallway towards her nursery.

"Seriously, why can't you be more like how your brothers were at your age and be laid back instead of being a total pain in my-OW! Shit!"

He winced when Erica smacked his left eye with her empty bottle, the corner hitting him directly in his pupil.

"Well, I was gonna say 'ass', but sure, let's go with 'eye'...why not? Ouch..."

Archer grumbled under his breath as he set Erica down on her changing table, and narrowed his one good eye at her.

"Erica...I love you and all, no matter what, and I swear this is the last time I'll ask you this, but are you sure you're my daughter?"

Erica went silent for a moment and stared up into Archer's face, her identical, piercing blue eyes sharply focused onto his. A small smile grew across her chubby-cheeked, light caramel-colored face.

Sterling looked down at his infant daughter, and smiled back at her warmly. He picked her up, relieved to see her happy.

"Aww, see? There you go! There's my sweet little girl! Did that giant bug up your ass finally die, huh?"

Erica frowned at Archer, and looked over his shoulder, smiling and flailing her arms at what she wanted.

He turned, and saw Lana standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, smirking at his disappointed expression.

"Oh, dammit, you were just happy to see _her_. For a second, I thought you'd finally come around to my charms...seriously, Erica, you're lucky you inherited my stunning good looks and your Mom's hard-headed-yet-endearing personality, or else you'd be downright impossible to get along with."

Archer finished cleaning up Erica before he handed her over to Lana; she snuggled up against her mother, and quickly fell asleep. Lana kissed her forehead as she set her down in her crib, and Archer came over next to her and ran his hand over Erica's fine, dark brown hair. They rested their heads together as they looked down at their sleeping daughter.

"Finally...well, I guess she's like every other woman in my life; treats me like shit only because her mind can't comprehend how much she loves me. Ow, hey..."

Lana smirked as she lightly punched Sterling's arm, trying not to make too much noise and wake up Erica again.

The couple quietly left the nursery, and walked together down the marble hallway of their mansion.

Archer ran his hand through his hair and yawned loudly, exhausted, but relieved that Erica finally went to sleep.

"Man, guess this is karma or whatever for all those times you called me in the middle of the night to go to your place when Leon and Lewis wouldn't stop giving you shit, huh?"

"Yuuup, guess so...about time there was another woman around here though, this place was turning into a total sausage festival..."

They walked down the stairs, past the large fountain in the foyer, and headed towards the kitchen, where Seamus sat at the bar with a frozen bottle of vodka and a sausage piroshki beside him, working on his homework.

"Hi, guys! Is Erica well? I heard her crying again. I swear, she screamed so loud, she nearly broke new lenses..."

Seamus adjusted his eyeglasses uncomfortably on the bridge of his nose, still not used to wearing them quite yet.

Archer poured himself a tumbler of scotch and chuckled at the teenager; with his glasses on, Seamus's physical resemblance to Cyril was much more apparent than before, but his penchant for alcohol and the fact he wasn't complete crap at everything he tried still counted him as a full-fledged Archer in Sterling's opinion.

"Yeah, Seamus, she's fine now. Hey, where's Woodhouse? Your sister thought it'd be a good idea to mark our bed as hers, ocelot style."

Seamus pointed around the corner. As his parents left in the direction he indicated, he took a sip of frozen vodka directly from the frosty bottle, and went back to his studies.

"Woodhouse! Jesus, deaf old fruit...WOODHOUSE!"

The elderly valet came shuffling stiffly around the corner, from the sitting room where he had been resting. His arthritis had made him much slower in his very advanced age, much to Archer's annoyance, and the larger size of their new home greatly increased the distance he had to walk to perform his chores.

"Y-yes, sir?"

"Woodhouse, my lovely little daughter totally shit-housed our bed. I need you to go upstairs, strip the bed, clean up everything, and throw on a new bedspread and sheets and stuff before you start on dinner. AND WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS after handling those piss-soaked sheets, okay? Oh, and seriously, use that wheelchair Ray gave you, you're slow as balls without it..."

Woodhouse crossed his arms defiantly and looked away.

"No, sir! I'll use my own bloody pins til they fall off before I go joy-riding around in that cheap deathtrap!"

Archer took another sip of his drink and shook his head.

"Well, fine, whatever, but at least put the bedsheets in the wheelchair and use it to cart shit around...half afraid you'll snap in two like a twig just picking up a sock these days. Christ, how the hell are you still alive?"

Archer and Lana went out on the front deck of their home. The late autumn afternoon sun bathed their secluded property in a golden yellow hue, making the red, orange, brown and yellow leaves falling from the maple trees dotting the area glisten brilliantly.

The couple sat down together on the old, white suede couch from Lana's apartment, the same one that they sat on while they watched 'Gator' that fateful night, over twelve years ago.

Lana nuzzled her face into Archer's neck, making him smile and squirm a bit, slightly ticklish. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and sighed happily.

"Well, we're only a week away from trying out this whole 'wedding' thing everyone is talking about again. I promise not to run away this time, okay?"

Archer laughed softly and looked down at Lana.

"It's all right, Lana, I trust you. But just to be sure I paid off Pam to set up an invisible fence around the altar this time to make sure you don't pull a Jesse Owens again..."

She pinched his side playfully, laughing.

"Ouch...Jesus, Lana, no wonder Erica beats me up, she keeps seeing you do this sort of shit to me. Pretty soon, she'll even be beating up-"

"-LEON AND LEWIS ARCHER! I know you little shits are out there! Get the hell off my property!"

The twins, who were crouched down in a deer blind perched in an old oak tree, stayed perfectly silent as Leon focused his spotter's scope at their neighbor, Earl Holt, who was walking around below carrying a baseball bat, searching for them.

Lewis uncapped his scope, and aimed his paintball rifle at the back of Earl's head, waiting for Leon's signal to fire.

He took a deep breath, and, when Leon held up a clenched fist, Lewis fired the high-powered paintball rifle, and hit Earl directly in the back of his fat head.

"YOOOWW! GOD DAMMIT, YOU LITTLE BASTARDS! I'M GONNA KILL YA!"

Leon and Lewis laughed and high-fived each other as they climbed down the tree, hopped on their four-wheelers, and sped away down the trail through the wooded area separating their family's property from Earl's.

The boys pulled up to the large, detached garage on the edge of their property line, and parked their ATVs inside, next to their matching jet skis, dirt bikes, and, of course, their father's prized airboat.

"Let's go find Ray before that Earl douchebag comes over and tells Mom and Dad on us..."

Lewis nodded, and he ran behind Leon towards Ray's small house nearby.

Ray had offered to be the Archers' bodyguard shortly after Erica was born, on the condition that he got his own place. With all of his added responsibilities with his newborn daughter and managing a global liquor empire, Archer reluctantly agreed, and had let Ray move into the mother-in-law apartment near the main house that he had planned on moving Woodhouse into when he became completely useless some day.

Leon knocked on the front door of the small brick house, while Lewis kept an eye out for Earl.

"Ray, Ray! That asshole Earl from up the road is pissed off at us again!"

The door opened, and Ray poked his head out.

"Oh, that big, fat...fine, hold up, you rascals, I'll be out in a scrooch. Y'all go run along to your parents, I gotta throw on some pants before dealing with that idiot..."

The twins did as he said and bolted up the hill towards the house where Archer and Lana were still sitting as Earl's truck came up the long driveway.

Ray pulled a white t-shirt over his head, and started tying up his boots.

"Sorry, honey, duty calls. I'll be back quick though, sounds like the twins were just messing with that man bear Earl and they need me to save their little asses...AGAIN."

Ray's boyfriend, Kevin Holt, rolled his eyes and flipped over onto his stomach to look at Ray from the bed.

"Dang it, Ray, you know Earl's my dad, can't you just acknowledge that for once and just say, 'hey Kev, your dad is pissed off' instead of just callin' him Earl?"

Ray pulled on his red, flannel-lined denim jacket, concealing his holster underneath.

"I would, but acknowledging that you share DNA with him skeezes me out...seriously, how could someone so gross make someone so friggin' adorable?"

"Probably cuz my mama was so dang gorgeous, she had to die from that heart attack and go back home up to heaven."

Ray chuckled and kissed the tip of Kevin's nose as he left to go settle down their intrusive, loud-mouthed neighbor, who was now yelling at Archer.

Kevin just shook his head and rolled onto his back, knowing that his father had no idea that he was gay, and that he had been sleeping with Ray for the past several months.

If everything went well, it'd stay that way; he was always afraid what his father would do if he ever found out.

* * *

Meanwhile, in London

* * *

Cyril wiped a tear from his cheek as he placed a his latest fishing lure on Orin Steel's grave; he had been leaving a handmade lure on his friend's final resting place every month since he died over a year ago.

Framboise shivered underneath the large umbrella held by Cyril, and hugged onto his arm tightly.

"Ooh la la, mon cherie, I'm so cold, and this cemetery, c'est effrayant, no?"

Cyril rubbed his wife's arm and drew her close to him.

"Yeah, I know, dear. I'm sorry, it's just, well, after losing Horace and Orin last year, seeing Seamus's death certificate today on the KGB network really rattled me up. I mean, I literally have _no one_ left in the world except for you, Framboise. And it...it hurts, you know?"

Framboise nodded sadly and held onto Cyril tighter as they walked away from Orin's headstone, the sound of the cold rain hitting the umbrella growing louder with every step they took.

"Oui, Cyril. I too am alone except for you. Perhaps this is why we are so happy with each other?"

Cyril smiled as he held the ODIN limousine door open for Framboise, and handed the soaked umbrella to the driver as he sat beside his wife.

"Oh, Framboise...you always know exactly what to say to me to make me feel better..."

Framboise gave Cyril a very animalistic grin as she suddenly kneeled down in front of him and started unzipping his pants with her teeth.

"Aaaand exactly what to _do_ to me, to make me...feel...oh my god..."

Cyril hit the button on the seat beside him to roll up the divider, and rested his hands on the back of his wife's head as she made him forget why he ever needed anyone else in the first place.

* * *

"C'mon, Earl, we all know you're just drunk on, well, compared to what I'M drunk on, horse piss. You probably just got stung by a wasp or something, my kids wouldn't be caught dead on your shitty excuse of a redneck version of Neverland Ranch..."

Earl growled at Archer, who was standing on the porch in front of Leon and Lewis. Ray stood between the two men, and kept Earl from climbing up on the deck.

"Your whole family's a bunch of assholes, just like YOU, Archer! I'm warning y'all for the last time, keep those little shit head kids of yours OFF OF MY LAND!"

Archer narrowed his eyes and put a protective arm over Leon and Lewis as he drew his Walther, aiming it at Earl.

"Call my sons 'shit heads' one more time, and it'll be YOU be shitting out of...out of your...dammit, I had something for this. Just, fuck off, Earl."

Earl threw his hands up in the air and stormed back to his truck, giving up the fight.

"You've been warned, Archer! Don't lemme catch your damn kids on my property again, or I'm no longer accountable for my actions!"

Earl slammed his door shut, and drove away from the mansion; as the old red pickup truck exited the gates, Ray pressed the button on the remote in his pocket to close and lock them behind Earl.

Archer looked down at his sons with a smirk as the sun began sinking over the horizon.

"You hit him in the ten range?"

The twins smiled and said in unison, "Headshot!"

Sterling laughed and ruffled their hair as they all walked inside.

"That's my boys!"

Lana, Sterling, Ray, and the twins were all laughing loudly as they walked into the mansion. The scent of roast pheasant from the kitchen was strong enough to be detectable in the chilly fall air outside as the family sat down to dinner.

* * *

Note: Only a handful of chapters before I'm all done with this story. Here's a taste of things I have planned for the upcoming chapters: Two weddings, a reception of epic proportions, a death of a main character, and a glimpse at the future of the Archers!


	12. Re-Hitcher's Guide to Catastrophe: Part1

Chapter Twelve: Re-Hitchers Guide to Catastrophe, Part I

"Dammit, Ray! Would you hurry up in there? Everyone's waiting outside, and we can't start the ceremony without you!"

Archer drummed his fingers impatiently on his arm as he waited for Ray, his best man, to finish in the bathroom.

"I know, Archer, I'm sorry! Just...just gimme another minute, 'kay? I'm almost done!"

"Why don't you just pretend the bathroom is a closet so you'll come out already?"

"Oh, hardee har HAR. Just...just go wait out there with the others, I'll only be another minute!"

Archer rolled his eyes and left Ray in the bathroom. As he headed towards the large double doors to the entrance of his home, he stopped a moment to admire the two-story tall fountain of a bottle of Glengoolie Black raining actual single-malt scotch whiskey onto a trio of women with gigantic, heaving breasts, all riding panthers, as a nude, silver statute of himself beneath the bottle stood atop a diamond-encrusted mountain with his arms extended towards the heavens. He remembered having to haggle with Lana to have the ridiculous monument to his hedonism and ego installed; in exchange for having the elaborate art piece installed in their home, Archer had to endorse a full scholarship from Glengoolie Distilleries for students majoring in women's studies, and to take their kids out to a respectable art museum once a month until Seamus graduated high school to remind their impressionable sons of what 'real' art should look like.

"Small price to pay for such beauty...", Archer mused to himself as he ogled the metallic breasts on the statute for a moment longer before exiting the foyer.

He walked down the pathway leading towards the old, repurposed barn on the property, which he had renovated into a meeting hall dedicated strictly for massive parties. As the owner and curator of the second-most successful distillery in the world, Archer was able to throw lavish, near-weekly parties for his clients, distributors, members of the small community of Savona, and, at least a handful of times, the entire staffs of his distilleries flown in from around the US and Scotland. He had yet to have a single complaint from his accountant, so he continued to spend his seemingly endless fortune how he pleased.

Archer went in through the side entrance of the building, where the rest of the people in the wedding ceremony were waiting.

"Dad, where's Ray? I thought he'd be here by now, he is last one needed to start...", Seamus asked as he adjusted his glasses. He was one of the groomsmen, along with Krieger. Kevin, who they hired recently as the family gardener as to lower Earl's suspicions of how much of his 35-year old son's time was being spent on their property, was rearranging a nearby pot of flowers.

"He's still in the bathroom back up at the house, Seamus. Ugh, I can't even imagine what he's doing in there...hey, Fairy the Cable Guy, do you know what's up with him?"

Kevin scowled at the insult, and muttered, "No...phrasing...", before excusing himself to go tend to the flower wreaths hung on the walls.

Archer smirked, "Heh, wow, wedding zing...could do without the attitude, though, Kevin!"

Lana, on the other side of the meeting hall, glanced up at the giant antique clock on the far wall of the building above the altar, and grumbled angrily under her breath as the clock chimed 8pm.

Pam, her maid of honor, patted her back reassuringly.

"Hey, it could be worse, right? Could be Mr Archer holding up the wedding instead of Ray. At least we all know he won't be trying to get revenge for ya running off the first time you guys -mmpph!"

Lana removed her silk-gloved hand from Pam's mouth, and looked over to Cheryl, a bridesmaid, who had flown out from Liverpool (with a number of Izzites in tow, including Molly and Emily, who were sitting with Leon and Lewis). She was drinking a bottle of rubber cement she had hidden in her bouquet of flowers when Lana interrupted her.

"How about you, Captain Schizo? You have any idea what's up with Ray? We're running REALLY late, and-"

"-and, according to the intel from the Izzites planted all over this weird, farmy baby factory you and Mr Archer decided to start up, Ray's just super nervous about asking Kevin to marry him, so he's been throwing up, talking to himself, and trying to get his shit straight before he pops the question later at the reception."

Lana and Pam gasped, surprised at the news.

"Really? How would you know for sure? Ray isn't exactly the commitment type...although he has seemed pretty happy with Kevin..."

Cheryl finished the jar of rubber cement and coughed.

"It's true, Lana. I cross referenced it with the old gypsy woman. Oh hey, speaking of Ray, he's finally here. Let's hurry up and get this boring freakfest over with, I wanna see the look on that dickbag Earl's face when Ray proposes to his kid at the reception afterwards!"

Lana shook her head to refocus her attention, took a calming breath, and started walking down the aisle.

* * *

"...and do you, Lana Elena Kane, take Sterling Malory Archer as your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?"

Lana squeezed Archer's hands as she looked into his eyes, and replied, "yes".

"Then, by the power vested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you man and-"

"WAIT! I HAVE AN OBJECTION TO THIS UNION!"

The crowd gasped; Archer looked out into the rows of seats, and squinted to recognize who had spoken.

"Oh GOD DAMMIT, not aga-wait...Cyril?! What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Cyril removed his fedora, and looked up at the confused wedding party with a smug smile as he walked out into the center aisle from the back row of seats.

"Just making sure you don't break the law, Archer. You know _exactly_ why you two can't get married!"

Archer and Lana looked at each other, knowingly. Sterling aimed his Walther PPK at Cyril, and pulled back the slide.

"You'd better get the fuck out of here while you still have functional knees, Cyril. Remember our 'little deal' we made back in the Maldives? About messing with me and my family?"

Cyril chuckled as he opened his trenchcoat, revealing his bulletproof vest underneath, and pulled out a folded file from his inside pocket.

"I remember, Archer, but this really is more of a matter of law enforcement than anything personal. Oh, and since I'M now the head of ODIN, and YOU'RE just a civilian since you quit ISIS, I think you should probably put _that_ away before you're arrested for threatening the life of a spy master with diplomatic immunity. Now, what I hold in my hand is my-"

Ray grabbed his bull pup shotgun that was hidden in a nearby potted shrub, and cocked it as he marched down the aisle towards Cyril.

"-DICK! Just scat, Cyril! G'wan, get outta here! There's absolutely NO reason why Archer and Lana can't get married, you big bully! Speaking of which, Kevin, we need to have a little talk after this, 'kay hon?"

Archer yelled in frustration and fired his pistol into the ceiling, catching everyone's attention.

"ALL RIGHT, ENOUGH OF THIS BULLSHIT! Lana, show these assholes our marriage certificate from Vegas."

Malory, holding Erica, stood up quickly.

"Wait, your WHAT?"

Lana produced a sheet of paper from her bustier, and handed it to Sterling.

"Yes, everyone. It's true. Archer and I have actually been legally married for the past 15 years..."

Everyone looked and talked amongst each other, shocked at the news.

Archer snatched the wireless microphone from the podium, and he held up the wrinkled and torn marriage certificate.

"Hey, relax, people. We only found out ourselves about a year ago, when we were packing up shit from my penthouse to move out here..."

* * *

11 Months Earlier

* * *

"...old parking ticket, old parking ticket, a court summons for reckless driving, citation for drunken disorderly, ANOTHER citation for drunken disorderly...dammit, Archer! Are ALL of the papers in here unpaid legal bullshit?!"

Lana grumbled as she sorted through the mess of papers crammed tightly in the top drawer of the desk in Archer's study, annoyed to find how many unpaid parking fees and fines he had hidden away over the years.

Sterling walked in, carrying a box labeled "Sterling: extra guns".

"Uh, yeah, probably. You can just throw all of that into the fireplace, it's getting kinda chilly in here..."

Lana shook her head, and, reaching deep into the back of the drawer, pulled out a thick, yellowed piece of paper.

"I am NOT destroying evidence, Archer. I meant- woah, is this a...a marriage certificate?! What the shit?!"

Archer dropped the box and ran into the study, his eyes wide in disbelief as a loaded gun inside the box shot out a nearby window.

* * *

"So yeah, after we asked Krieger to trace back our mission records at ISIS from the year on the certificate, all of the pieces of that hazy night all those years ago finally started falling into place..."

Lana cleared her throat as she took the certificate from Archer, and explained the story to their guests from behind the podium.

* * *

About 16 years ago, In Las Vegas

* * *

"WELL THEN FINE, LANA! Break up with me! You're-hic!-, such a crazy _bitch_, I'll betcha I'll have screwed...I dunno, 90 hot chicks before y-hic!-YOU find even ONE gross idiot to bang YOU...you...IDIOT!"

Archer, knuckle-dragging drunk, screamed at his girlfriend, Lana, in the lobby of the King's Casino. The couple had been posing as newlyweds on their failed mission to assassinate an advisor to Fidel Castro who was staying at the same dingy hotel, but had been doing nothing but fight after Lana caught Sterling having loud anal sex with a maid in a utility room.

Lana, who was equally drunk, twisted off the cheap, fake wedding ring from her finger and threw it at her staggering boyfriend's face with a laugh.

"Oh, sure! You know what YOUR problem is, Archer? YOU are too much of a chicken-shit _pussy_ to commit to anything! Here's your stupid fake ring back, you massive asshole!"

"Oh yeah, Little Miss Anti-Anal?! Well, there just so happensh to be a-hic! a wedding chapel right over there! I'll show YOU who the pussy is! I'll marry the FUCK outta you! How's THAT for committing?"

"HA! I bet you'll wussssh out before...-urp, before Elvis here puts his sequined cape on! BRING IT!"

Archer grabbed her by her wrist, and led her towards the wedding chapel, where a Mexican Elvis impersonator sat on a plastic pew, smoking a cigarette and watching a soap opera on a tiny TV.

The couple narrowed their eyes at each other as they staggered towards the altar, neither one breaking their stare.

"All right, King, we'll take one basic marriage, TO GO!"

The inebriated couple remained vertical just long enough to complete the fast yet legal ceremony, and they both signed the marriage certificate seconds before blacking out, right in the middle of the chapel. The Elvis impersonator shrugged, tucked the folded certificate into Archer's suit jacket, laid his smokey, sequined cape over the snoring couple, and lit another cigarette as he looked back to his TV.

* * *

"...and so yeah, when we woke up the next morning, we completely forgot about all of that. We broke up as soon as we got back to ISIS, and I guess Woodhouse must've put the certificate in the desk with the rest of my parking tickets and shit when he was cleaning out the pockets of my suits before he took them to the cleaners, thinking it was another citation or something. Explains why we always kept each other as our life insurance beneficiaries this entire time too, despite all of the...rough spots."

The crowd stared up at the couple, speechless. Malory carried her sleeping granddaughter over to her Archer, still confused.

"But...but why, Sterling? Why didn't this show up on any of your background checks? We must've checked your legal status on a weekly basis while you were an active agent at ISIS, I would think that a marriage performed by some gigantic, sweaty, Mexican cheese wrapped in a velour pantsuit would've shown up!"

Archer chuckled as he took Erica from his mother's arms, and held his sleeping daughter close.

"Remember, Mother? How I don't have a social security number, thanks to your brilliant decision to claim I was my fake twin brother 'Elvis Roosevelt Archer', who tragically died an hour after being born? Which is also the reason why the bazillion bucks I inherited recently was completely tax free?"

Malory nodded, remembering how she had to set up a fake funeral for her non-existent, deceased baby to assure that Sterling would be completely non-existent on paper so Woodhouse could raise him without interference from child protective services.

"Oh, right...the tax...thing."

Cyril, still held at gunpoint by Ray, crossed his arms, frustrated.

"Geezy Petes, way to ruin a perfectly good confrontation, Archer..."

Archer looked down at Cyril, remembering that he was even there.

"You're still here? Go home, nerd! Oh, and congrats on being in charge of the Asshole Squad over at ODIN, Cyril. Shooting my real father was a TOTAL dick move, should've known you were involved somehow."

Cheryl looked over at Cyril, grinning wickedly and barking as she put up her hands like pointy dog ears, reminding him of Horace.

Completely defeated, the head of ODIN put his hat back on, hung his head sadly, and left the meeting hall without a word.

Seamus frowned as his biological father shuffled away, and sighed heavily.

"He didn't even recognize me..."

Archer smiled over at his adoptive son, "That's a good thing, Seamus. That just means you're nothing like that traitor douchebag."

Seamus grinned, his confidence restored, and he adjusted his glasses once again.

Krieger coughed, and looked over at Archer and Lana.

"So...hey, forgive me if this is a little forward, but, since you two are already married and all...would you mind if Pam and I just sorta knock our wedding out now? I mean, we're already dressed for it, plus most of the people we wanted to invite are here, and-mmrphh!"

Pam cut Krieger off by tackling him and kissing him as she pinned him down. The crowd groaned in disgust and averted their eyes from the sight.

Archer laughed and put his arm around Lana's waist as he cradled Erica in his other arm.

"Sure, Dr Chubby Chaser, don't see why not! Father, or Priest...Guy, or whatever? You maybe wanna set our friends up with some matrimony while we still have you for the next hour?"

The minister laughed nervously and nodded as he returned to the podium, trying not to look down at the soon-to-be bride and groom making out on the floor in front of him.

"Ah, heh, sure thing, Mr Archer. But perhaps we should all take a bit of an...intermission, before we start up a whole new ceremony? I need to draw up a marriage license for these...betrothed folks, before I can legally marry them...oh, Mother of Mercy..."

Everyone rushed out of the meeting hall as Krieger unzipped Pam's dress, revealing her rolls of back fat as they continued to fornicate in front of the podium.

As everyone went outside towards the main house, Lana looked around nervously, catching Archer's attention immediately.

"Hey, where are the twins? And their...girlfriends...are missing. OH SHIT!"

Archer smiled widely, knowing what Lana was implying, and sprinted back to the house behind her as he held Erica tightly to his chest. She had woken up, and was giggling loudly.

"Oh, so NOW you like me!"

Archer grinned, and ran even faster, causing his daughter to laugh louder with every step.

Ray and Kevin snuck back into the mother-in-law apartment as everyone headed up the small hill towards the house.

Earl, who was out looking for nightcrawlers on his property for his fishing trip the next day, looked up at his deer blind suspiciously when he heard the sound of laughter and a few low moans.

"What the- oh, those little shit heads...I warned 'em! I am gonna KILL them Archer twins!"

Earl climbed up the ladder to the deer blind as he reached for his snub-nosed .38 revolver in his back pocket, ready to kill.

He stopped suddenly when he heard his son Kevin scream loudly through the woods, in the direction of Archer's property.

"Kevin? Hang in there, boy! I'm comin'!"

Earl jumped down from the ladder rungs and bolted into the dark woods, towards the sound of Kevin's screams.

From the empty meeting hall, Krieger yelled a nearly-inaudible, "ME TOO!"

* * *

Note: Keep your eyes peeled for Part II!


End file.
